JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 


t  'f///f  -  i/f'ftftne  -Oic'onofe  oe. 
/'/:}?  -  ///Y/ 


ulie  de  Lespinasse 

By  the  Marquis  de  Segur 
Translated  from  the 
French  by  P.  H.  Lee 
Warner 


New  York 

Henry  Holt  and  Company 

1907 


Printed  by 

BALLANTYNE,  HANSON  6*  Co. 
Edinburgh 


INTRODUCTION 

ONE  summer  afternoon  in  the  year  1811  Madame 
de  Stae'l  was  returning  from  an  excursion  down 
the  Chambery  valley,  when  the  failing  conversation 
of  her  party  drifted  to  a  recent  book  of  which  the 
reputation  was  already  in  the  ascendant.  Talk 
suddenly  became  animated.  Madame  de  Stae'l 
was  the  first  to  take  fire,  and  her  brilliant  words 
held  all  hearers  by  their  charm.  A  storm  broke 
over  the  carriage,  but  neither  for  wind,  hail,  nor 
lightning  had  any  of  its  occupants  attention  to 
spare.  One  subject  possessed  every  sense — the 
volume  of  Letters  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse 
which  the  widow  of  Count  Guibert  had  given 
to  the  world  a  few  months  earlier. 

The  anecdote  may  serve  in  some  degree  to 
indicate  the  profound  interest  excited  in  the 
literary  world,  almost  from  the  moment  of  their 
first  publication,  by  pages  that  revived,  as  it  were 
gave  a  second  life  to,  the  soul  of  a  woman  dead 
these  thirty  years  and  whose  name  was  scarcely 
known  to  the  new  generation.  Little  less  than  a 
complete  century  has  since  passed,  but  the  accents 
of  this  voice  from  the  grave  are  still  to  be  heard. 


2032317 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

Like  Madame  de  Stael  and  her  fellow-travellers, 
we  feel  our  hearts  beat  in  response  to  the  tumults 
of  this  heart ;  we  experience  the  sad  charm  of  these 
burning  lines,  the  very  disorder  and  contradictions 
in  which  so  convincingly  reflect  their  passionate 
origin  that  one  may  apply  to  them  the  words  of 
Lamartine,  well  used  of  the  letters  of  another  Julie, 
where,  in  his  "  Raphael,"  he  says  :  Her  very  breath 
was  in  the  words,  her  eyes  glanced  up  from  the  lines ; 
one  felt  through  the  phrases  the  living  warmth  of  the 
lips  from  which  they  had  just  fallen^ 

By  these  artless  letters,  with  their  unstudied 
style, — frequently,  indeed,  lacking  any  style  in  the 
grammatical  sense  of  that  term, — the  spontaneous 
overflow  from  the  deeps  of  her  soul,  and  so  little  in- 
tended for  alien  eyes  that  she  particularly  enjoined 
their  destruction,  Julie  de  Lespinasse  has  found  her 
unexpected  place  in  the  history  of  literature.  Suc- 
cessive editions  confirm  the  lasting  interest  of  this 
correspondence,  yet  all  follow  the  text  as  origin- 
ally printed  by  Madame  de  Guibert,  incomplete, 
abridged,  and  full  of  suppressions  as  it  is,  if  only 
because  of  the  reticence  natural  in  a  woman  to 
whose  husband  the  originals  were  addressed. 

The  personality  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse 
has  excited  a  similar  curiosity  in  the  wider  public, 
and  various  biographers  have  described  her  appear- 
ance, outlined  her  character,  and  traced  the  prin- 
cipal events  of  her  romantic  career.  Their  works 

1  Julie  des  HeVettes,  immortalised  by  the  poet  as  Elvira. 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

have,  in  a  word,  popularised  a  portrait  of  which, 
if  it  be  possible,  the  attractions  are  enhanced, 
in  that  it  may  be  taken  as  representative  of  an 
epoch,  a  symbol  of  the  revolution  accomplished  in 
contemporary  thought  during  the  period  of  Julie's 
life — the  change  of  the  age  of  reason  into  the  age 
of  passion  and  sentimental  licence. 

But  notwithstanding  the  undoubted  interest  of 
some  of  these  volumes,  no  single  one  has  failed  to 
impress  me  by  the  extensive  intermissions  and 
the  numerous  obscurities  to  be  encountered  by  all 
who  would  study  the  history  of  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse.  Her  birth,  youth,  and  education  ;  that 
first  passion,  which,  as  she  herself  testifies,  exercised 
so  decisive  an  influence  on  her  life, — all  remain 
vague,  enveloped  in  mists,  frequently  buried  in 
impenetrable  obscurity.  The  very  episode  of  her 
passion  for  Guibert  and  the  connection  between  the 
pair — the  essential  subject  of  the  published  Letters 
— can  be  followed  only  in  the  most  imperfect  and 
summary  manner.  We  can  see  her  blind  adora- 
tion for  "the  great  man,"  the  adored  of  contem- 
porary society  ;  learn  how  cruelly  she  suffered  from 
his  coldness  and  infidelities  ;  watch  her  fall  a  prey 
to  disillusionment  and  despair  after  but  a  few  years. 
But  the  real  lights  to  be  gained  upon  the  circum- 
stances of  this  love-story,  or  its  successive  phases, 
are  rare,  and  it  does  not  need  much  study  to  per- 
ceive that  the  several  accounts  of  the  few  indubit- 
able landmarks  frequently  differ  in  detail. 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

A  happy  accident  first  afforded  me  most  pre- 
cious light  upon  this  last  crisis  in  the  history  of 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  when  I  learned  that 
the  rich  family  archives  of  Guibert's  descendants 
contained  the  originals  of  the  famous  letters.  Count 
de  Villeneuve-Guibert  opened  this  door  to  me  with 
a  courtesy  which  I  can  never  sufficiently  acknow- 
ledge. Himself  appreciating  the  value  of  his  in- 
heritance as  well  as  any  one,  the  Count  allowed  me 
to  read  the  very  sheets  penned  by  Julie,  without 
alteration  or  suppression.  Here,  also,  are  nume- 
rous other  letters,  pages  of  a  livelier  or  more  inti- 
mate tone,  withheld  from  publication  when  the  rest 
were  printed  for  reasons  then  of  sufficient  weight, 
although  now  without  a  claim  to  consideration. 
The  sheets  overflow  with  nervous  life  and  gain 
additional  interest  from  the  considerable  packet  of 
Guibert's  replies  which  accompanies  them.  They 
afford  us  an  almost  uninterrupted  view  of  the 
most  secret  motions  of  a  sincere  and  exalted  soul. 
These  priceless  documents,  the  first  as  the  most 
substantial  reward  of  my  curiosity,  encouraged  me 
to  further  research.  I  am  happy  to  be  able  to 
announce  their  imminent  publication  under  the 
supervision  of  their  enlightened  owner. 

My  next  effort  was  to  elucidate  the  remaining 
obscurities  in  this  story  of  many  troubles,  and 
evidence  was  not  long  in  arising  from  the  dust  of 
ancient  archives  with  a  lavishness  exceeding  my 
most  ardent  hopes.  The  birth,  education,  and 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

intimate  existence  of  Julie  were  displayed  in 
letters  exchanged  with  one  of  her  brothers,  no  less 
than  in  notes,  letters,  and  the  manuscript  journals 
of  certain  of  her  relatives — hitherto  unprinted  docu- 
ments which  I  consulted  in  the  library  of  the  town 
of  Roanne,  or  among  the  family  papers  of  the 
Marquis  de  Vichy  and  the  Marquis  d'Albon,  virgin 
riches  put  at  my  disposal  with  a  liberality  and 
kindliness  beyond  measure.  Other  side-lights  on 
the  same  early  period  I  have  gained  from  the 
memoirs  and  intimate  papers  of  Madame  de  la 
Ferte  Imbault,  for  permission  to  draw  on  which  I 
am  once  again  indebted  to  the  Marquis  d'Estampes. 

A  like  good  fortune  followed  my  efforts  to  un- 
ravel the  mystery  hitherto  veiling  Julie's  first  love 
and  her  relations  with  the  Marquis  de  Mora. 
Thanks  to  the  kindly  offices  of  the  Marquis 
d'Alcedo,  I  obtained  communication  of  documents 
from  the  muniment-room  of  the  house  of  Villa- 
Hermosa,  which  define  the  hitherto  shadowy  per- 
sonality of  the  man  who  played  his  part  in  this 
touching  episode. 

Finally,  in  respect  of  the  friends  and  familiars 
of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  her  salon,  and 
the  public  and  more  worldly  side  of  her  character, 
Mademoiselle  Valentine  Stapfer.  hospitably  made 
me  free  of  the  rich  archives  preserved  in  her 
chateau  at  Talcy ;  while  I  owe  similar  acknowledg- 
ments to  Monsieur  Charles  Henry,  discoverer  and 
printer  of  the  "  Unpublished  Letters."  Numerous 


x  INTRODUCTION 

works,  especially  on  David  Hume,  consulted  in 
the  Library  of  the  British  Museum,  complete  the 
list  of  original  sources  on  which  I  have  drawn 
to  any  great  extent. 

Before,  now,  proceeding  to  my  work,  I  would 
only  thank  the  many  friends  who  have  aided  me 
with  their  encouragement  and  advice.  To  all  of 
these  I  hereby  tender  sincere  thanks,  particularly 
to  Monsieur  Gaston  Boissier,  Count  de  Rocham- 
beau,  and  Monsieur  Joseph  Dechelette. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 


CHAPTER    I 

Master  Basiliac's  client — Birth  of  Julie  de  Lespinasse — 
Her  father — Early  years  at  the  Chateau  d'Avauges — 
Maternal  distress  of  the  Countess  d'Albon— Her  death — 
Julie  at  the  Chateau  de  Champrond— Her  younger  brother, 
Abel  de  Vichy — Family  scenes  and  quarrels — Julie  desires 
to  take  the  veil — Madame  du  Deffand  . 


CHAPTER    II 

The  Marquise  du  Deffand — Three  periods  in  her  life — State 
of  her  mind  on  arrival  at  Champrond — Rapid  intimacy 
with  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Spiritual  and  physical 
portrait  of  Julie  in  her  twentieth  year — First  project  of 
living  with  Madame  du  Deffand — Julie  leaves  the  Vichys 
— Period  of  her  stay  at  Lyons — Complicated  negotiations 
with  Madame  du  Deffand — Opposition  of  Count  d'Albon — 
Julie  decides  to  live  in  Paris  ......  33 


CHAPTER    III 

The  Convent  of  Saint  Joseph — Intimate  life  of  the  Marquise 
du  Deffand — Influence  of  the  new  life  on  Julie — Her 
first  friends — The  Marechale  de  Luxembourg — Prepon- 
derant influence  of  Madame  du  Deffand  on  the  intellectual 
formation  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Similarity  in 
character  and  spirit — The  honeymoon  of  their  alliance — 
Good  feelings  endangered  by  instinctive  coquetry  of  Julie 
— Her  first  conquests  :  the  Chevalier  d'Aydie  and  President 
Henault — Her  first  romance:  Viscount  de  Taafe — Prudent 
intervention  of  Madame  du  Deffand — Her  moderation 
throughout 66 

xi 


xiv  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  X 

PAGE 

Changed  opinions  of  Mora — His  ill-health  and  discouragement 
— Similar  ailments  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Violent 
outburst  of  mutual  passion — Initial  excitement  of  both — 
Mora  visits  Ferney,  and  is  warmly  received  by  Voltaire  on 
d'Alembert's  introduction — Return  to  Paris  and  resumption 
of  the  romance — Platonic  character  of  the  connection — 
Projected  marriage  with  Julie — Mora,  recalled  to  the 
Spanish  army,  hands  in  his  papers,  but  is  taken  seriously 
ill  and  sent  to  Valentia — Violent  excitement  of  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse — Consequent  disappointment  of 
d'Alembert — He  travels  for  two  months — Sudden  return 
of  Mora  to  Paris — Renewed  passion,  and  relapse  of  Mora 
— His  father  insists  on  his  leaving  France — Painful  parting 
of  the  lovers 257 


CHAPTER  XI 

Fete  at  Moulin-Joli — Count  Guibert — His  high  repute  at  this 
time — Popularity  with  women — Madame  de  Montsauge — 
Guibert  impresses  Julie — Her  long  illusion  on  the  nature  of 
his  feelings  for  her — His  German  tour — Increasing  passion 
of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Her  remorse  on  account 
of  Mora— Bad  news  from  the  latter — Correspondence 
between  d'Alembert  and  the  Duke  of  Villa  Hermosa — 
Cruel  agitation  of  Julie — She  confesses  her  love  to  Guibert 
— His  response — Growing  jealousy  on  account  of  Madame 
de  Montsauge — Illness  of  Guibert — Julie's  anxiety — 
Guibert  at  last  announces  his  return 287 


CHAPTER  XII 

Guibert  returns  to  Paris — Julie's  passionate  outburst — Guibert 
breaks  with  Madame  de  Montsauge — Soiree  of  February 
10,  1774— Tragic  coincidence — First  excitement  after 
the  fact— Julie  closes  her  salon — First  disillusionment — 
Jealous  suspicions  on  meeting  Madame  de  Boufflers  and 
Madame  de  Montsauge — Scenes  between  the  lovers — 
Julie's  despair  at  her  own  weakness — Serious  relapse  of 
the  Marquis  de  Mora — d'Alembert's  attempts  to  bring  him 
back  to  Paris— Mora's  secret  doubt  of  Julie's  faithfulness 
— He  sets  out  to  rejoin  her — Accident  consequent  on 
fatigue  of  the  journey — Final  letter  to  Julie — His  death — 
Julie's  anguish  and  attempt  to  commit  suicide — Persistent 
remorse— Her  letters  to  the  dead  man — Surprising  patience 
of  Guibert  ....  318 


CONTENTS  xv 


CHAPTER  XIII 

PAGE 

Shaken  health  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Consequent  ill- 
temper — Guibert's  tactlessness— His  mysterious  absence — 
Irritation  of  Julie  and  first  threats  of  a  rupture  between 
them — Secret  interview  of  Guibert  with  Madame  de  Mont- 
sauge — Jealous  fury  of  Julie  on  discovering  this — Her 
withering  letter — Breach  of  several  months'  duration — 
Reconciliation,  but  persistent  vexation — Guibert's  literary 
ambitions — Wise  counsel  from  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse 
—  The  Constable  is  staged — Julie  consoles  him  for  his  dis- 
appointment—Guibert's  projected  marriage— Julie  believes 
the  scheme  abandoned — Unexpected  avowal  by  Guibert — 
'H\<s>  fiancee,  Mademoiselle  de  Courcelles — Julie's  despair — 
Scenes  prior  to  the  marriage — Departure  of  Guibert — The 
broken  ring 342 


CHAPTER   XIV 

Complicated  feelings  of  Guibert  on  his  marriage — Charming 
qualities  of  his  wife — Promise  of  a  married  idyll — Despair 
and  indignation  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Vain 
attempts  to  divert  her  mind — Bitter  reproaches  to  the 
traitor— Agonised  crisis  and  reaction  towards  a  more 
quiet  mind — She  swears  their  connection  shall  now  be 
platonic — Heroic  resistance  to  Guibert's  pleas — Death 
now  her  one  desire — Her  strength  fails  and  she  neglects 
herself — Her  friends  completely  ignorant  of  the  cause  of 
trouble — Incredible  blindness  of  d'Alembert — His  vexation 
at  her  refusal  of  his  efforts — Her  sweetness  and  his 
devotion — Julie's  health  fails  further,  but  her  passion  is 
undiminished — Sincere  grief  and  tender  protestations  of 
Guibert — Sad  letters  of  the  lovers — Abel  de  Vichy  arrives 
— Agony  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Her  last  letter 
to  Guibert — Her  death — d'Alembert  discovers  Julie's 
passion  for  Mora — His  indignation  and  despair — He  con- 
fides in  Guibert — Melancholy  resignation  of  his  last  years  .  373 


PRINCIPAL   NEW  AUTHORITIES    CONSULTED 

Private  ,4  rr/fozw.— Archives  of  Count  Villeneuve-Guibert ; 
the  Marquis  de  Vichy  ;  the  Marquis  d'Albon  ;  documents  in 
the  archives  of  the  house  of  Villa- Hermosa ;  Archives  of 
the  Marquis  d'Estampes ;  Chateau  de  Talcy ;  Count  de 
Rochambeau  (former  Collection  Minoret). 

Public  Archives. — MSS.  in  the  library  at  Roanne  ;  MSS. 
in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  ;• -Municipal  and  Departmental 
archives  at  Lyons  ;  Departmental  Archives  of  Macon  ;  MSS. 
in  the  Library  of  the  British  Museum,  and  elsewhere. 


JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 


CHAPTER   I 

Master  Basiliac's  client — Birth  of  Julie  de  Lespinasse — Her  father — Early 
years  at  the  Chateau  d'Avauges — Maternal  distress  of  the  Countess 
d'Albon — Her  death — Julie  at  the  Chateau  de  Champrond — Her  younger 
brother,  Abel  de  Vichy — Family  scenes  and  quarrels — Julie  desires  to 
take  the  veil — Madame  du  Deffand. 

IN  the  heart  of  the  city  of  Lyons,  and  fronting  the 
quays  which  line  the  right  bank  of  the  Saone,  rise 
the  great  buildings  of  a  picture  gallery.  Originally 
known  by  the  name  of  Grand  Custom- House  Place, 
the  space  thus  filled  was  up  to  quite  recent  times 
the  site  of  the  old  Custom  House.  Here,  about 
the  year  1730,  master  Louis  Basiliac,  "official 
surgeon  to  the  Marshal,"  occupied  a  modest  tene- 
ment with  his  wife,  dame  Madeleine  Ganivet, 
a  professional  midwife.  The  quarter  was  un- 
fashionable, and  the  neighbours  were  almost  exclu- 
sively of  the  lower  middle  and  artisan  classes,  but 
known  honesty  and  a  lengthy  practice  seem  to  have 
gained  the  surgeon  a  considerable  local  reputation. 

To  this  discreet  house  and  respectable  couple 
there  came  a  client  one  November  evening  in  the 
year  1732.  A  face  of  refined  sweetness,  extreme 
youth  and  beauty,  no  less  than  a  style  of  dress, 

A 


2  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

manners,  and  speech  very  different  from  those  of 
the  Basiliacs'  usual  patrons,  conspired  to  surround 
the  visitor  with  an  air  of  tantalising  mystery.  The 
newcomer  left  her  hosts  little  time  for  speculation, 
since  already  on  the  Qth  of  the  month  she  was 
delivered  of  a  girl  child,  more  frail  and  of  less  size 
than  usual,  but  perfectly  sound  and  of  the  liveliest 
disposition.  She  was  baptized  next  day  in  the 
neighbouring  church  of  Saint  Paul,  Basiliac  and 
his  wife  standing  godfather  and  godmother.  The 
names  of  two  other  witnesses  are  unknown.  The 
entry  in  the  Register,  from  the  hand  of  Rector 
Ambrose  himself,  may  be  printed  here  in  full,  since 
no  correct  transcription  has  yet  been  published. 

"This  lothof  November  1732  was  baptized  Julie  Jeanne 
Ele"onore  de  Lespinasse,  born  yesterday,  legitimate  daughter 
of  Claude  Lespinasse,  burgher  of  Lion,  and  of  dame  Julie 
Navarre  his  wife.  Godfather,  master  Louis  Basiliac, 
licensed  surgeon  of  Lyon;  godmother,  dame  Madeleine 
Ganivet,  wife  of  said  Basiliac,  vice  dame  Julie  Lechot 
absent.  Lacking  the  father's  signature  through  absence, 
two  witnesses  attest  with  their  signatures  in  addition  to 
those  of  godfather  and  godmother.  In  witness  whereof 

"BASILIAC— AMBROSE,  Rector? 

At  a  later  date,  in  a  different  ink,  an  unknown 
hand  has  inserted  il  before  "  legitimate,"  while  the 
words  his  wife  are  ruled  out,  and  the  margin  is 
marked  with  a  cross,  the  particular  sign  used  in 
this  register  to  denote  the  issue  of  irregular  unions. 

Claude  1'Espinasse  and  Julie  Navarre,  the 
parents  assigned,  are  purely  fictitious  personages 
of  whom  no  trace  has  ever  existed  in  the 


BIRTH    OF   JULIE  3 

city  registers.  Claude  and  Julie  are,  however,  the 
Christian  names  of  a  certain  great  lady,  at  that  time 
an  object  of  universal  attention  among  the  scandal- 
mongers of  Lyons.  The  name  of  1'Espinasse  is, 
further,  that  of  an  estate  brought  into  the  d'Albon 
family  during  the  fifteenth  century  by  the  marriage 
of  1  Alix  de  1'Espinasse  with  William  d'Albon, 
seigneur  de  Saint  -  Forgeux.  Master  Basiliac's 
client  was,  thus,  at  little  pains  to  disguise  her 
identity  when  she  caused  the  doctor  to  register 
her  daughter's  baptism  in  this  fashion. 

Few  will  be  ignorant  of  the  antiquity  and  fame 
of  the  house  of  d'Albon.  From  the  twelfth  century 
onwards  its  members  give  frequent  governors  to 
Dauphiny,  while  its  power  and  wealth  were  such 
that  one  of  its  chroniclers  can  record  how  there 
was  once  a  question  "  whether  its  lands  should  not 
be  constituted  a  kingdom,  since  indeed  they  are  as 
a  kingdom  in  size."  Among  the  many  scions  of 
this  warlike  house,  who  have  left  their  name  in  our 
history,2  Marshal  Saint-Andre,  a  hero  of  the  re- 
ligious wars,  killed  gloriously  at  the  battle  of  Dreux, 
is  undoubtedly  the  most  famous. 

In  the  opening  years  of  the  eighteenth  century 
the  house  was  divided  into  two  branches,  the  Counts 
of  Saint-Marcel  and  the  Marquisses  of  Saint- 
Forgeux,  either  being  represented  by  an  only  child 
— Claude  d'Albon,  Count  of  Saint-Marcel,  born  at 

1  Contemporary  Memoirs  and  legal  documents  make  no  attempt 
at  a  uniform  spelling  of  the  name.      1'Espinasse,  de  Lespinasse,  and 
even  Lespinasse,  with  no  prefix,  are  found  together.     I  have,  through- 
out, adopted  Julie's  own  autograph  of  de  Lespinasse. 

2  Jacques  d'Albon,  Marshal  Saint-Andre",  1524-1562. 


4  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Roanne  on  June  25,  1687,  and  Julie  Claude  Hilaire 
d'Albon,  born  at  Lyons  on  July  28,  1695.  This  girl, 
motherless  from  the  age  of  three,  and  thenceforward 
cared  for  only  by  a  father  whose  life  appears  to  have 
been  most  unedifying,  rightly  passed  for  one  of  the 
richest  heiresses  in  the  country,  being  heir-pre- 
sumptive through  her  father  to  the  Marquisate  of 
Saint-Forgeux,  while  from  her  mother  she  inherited 
the  principality  of  Yvetot.  She  already  bore  this 
last  title,  and  since  the  revenues  attached  formed 
a  considerable  dowry  in  themselves  one  can  easily 
conceive  that  both  branches  of  the  family  joined 
hands  in  the  common  hope  of  uniting  such  fair 
estates  in  the  person  of  a  d'Albon.  Questions  of 
compatibility  or  choice,  on  the  part  of  those  princi- 
pally concerned,  presented  no  problem  to  parents  of 
that  period.  The  idea  of  a  marriage  between  the 
cousins  was  carried  out  as  soon  as  conceived.  The 
Archbishop  of  Lyons  gave  the  necessary  dispen- 
sation ;  the  contract  was  signed  at  the  Chateau 
d'Avauges  on  February  10,  1711,  and  a  few 
weeks  later  saw  the  marriage  solemnised  at  Lyons. 
Julie  d'Albon  was  sixteen  when  her  future 
was  thus  arranged.  An  interesting  portrait  in  the 
Chateau  d'Avauges,  painted  a  few  years  later, 
shows  us  a  young  woman  of  slight  but  active  figure, 
with  an  oval  face  of  refined  features,  and  light 
brown  hair.  The  black  eyes,  of  a  softly  languish- 
ing aspect,  impart  a  dreamy  quality  to  the  entire 
face.  A  certain  length  in  the  nose  mars  features 
otherwise  beautiful  in  a  regular  style,  but  the 
dominant  impression  to  be  derived  from  this  por- 


COUNTESS    D'ALBON  5 

trait  is  that  of  extreme  sweetness  ;  its  melancholy, 
in  the  language  of  that  day  its  "  touching,"  expres- 
sion suggests  a  spirit  already  resigned  to  the 
troubles  that  the  future  is  to  bring. 

The  early  years  of  this  marriage,  even  if  im- 
perfectly happy,  were  none  the  less  free  of  any 
disaster.  Several  children  prove  the  reality  of 
the  married  tie ;  a  daughter,  Marie  Camille  Diane, 
was  born  in  1716.  Two  others  died  in  infancy. 
Finally,  on  November  n,  1724,  came  the  son, 
Camille  Alix  Eleonor  Marie,  whose  birth,  long  and 
impatiently  awaited,  was  to  assure  the  perpetuity 
of  the  race.  But  from  this  moment  trouble  begins, 
and  does  not  end  until  all  community  of  existence 
concludes  in  a  definite  separation. 

No  effort  has  yet  succeeded  in  illuminating  the 
obscurity  which  clings  alike  to  the  causes  and  cir- 
cumstances of  this  separation.  It  may,  however, 
be  inferred  that  the  first  fault  lay  with  the  man,  and 
that  his  fault  was  grave.  That  guardianship  of  the 
two  children  was,  from  the  first,  entrusted  to  the 
Countess  d'Albon  seems  eloquent  proof  of  this 
supposition,  no  less  than  the  fact  that  she  kept 
them  with  her  to  the  day  of  her  death.  Whatever 
her  later  conduct  may  have  been,  and  it  was  surely 
such  as  would  have  justified  protest  by  the  count, 
the  latter  never  raised  an  objection  or  criticism. 
He  established  himself  in  the  town  of  Roanne, 
dying  there  in  1771,  after  an  obscure  and  retired 
existence.  The  silence  of  this  retirement  was 
broken  by  no  effort  on  his  part,  nor  did  he  ever 
attempt  to  assert  a  claim  on  the  life  of  his  family. 


6  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

The  Countess  d'Albon,  meanwhile,  continued  to 
reside  on  her  estates,  more  generally  at  the 
Chateau  d'Avauges,  sometimes  in  her  house  at 
Lyons.  Quasi-widowed  at  the  age  of  thirty,  beau- 
tiful, sensitive,  and  of  the  romantic  disposition 
clearly  indicated  by  what  little  we  know  of  her,  it 
was  easy  to  prophesy  that  her  heart  would  find 
some  kind  of  distraction.  Nor  was  the  event  long 
delayed,  for  she  presently  conceived  an  attachment 
no  less  serious  and  lasting  than  it  was  almost 
publicly  avowed,  as  was  the  custom  of  the  day. 
The  period  is,  indeed,  one  in  which  the  majority 
of  her  sex  found  virtue  to  consist  in  the  possession 
of  no  more  than  one  lover  at  a  time,  and  morality 
in  faithfulness  to  him.  A  species  of  handbook  for 
women,  or  a  guide  to  the  conscience,  written  by 
one  of  them  at  about  this  date,  contains  these 
ingenuous  lines :  "  If  our  lady  have  a  lover  is  not 
the  question,  but  '  who  is  the  lover? ' '  A  woman's 
reputation  hangs  on  the  reply  to  this.  Dishonour, 
to-day,  may  lie  "  in  the  object,  but  never  in  the 
attachment."  A  passage  in  Bachaumont's  memoirs 
is  even  more  original.  Calmly  debating  the  proba- 
bilities in  respect  of  his  own  paternity,  he  decides 
in  favour  of  a  cousin,  a  particular  friend  of  his 
mother,  on  the  ground  that  a  close  physical  re- 
semblance is  seldom  fortuitous.  But,  whatever  the 
real  facts,  and  however  erroneous  contemporary 
gossip,  local  scandal  never  hesitated  to  couple  the 
names  of  Madame  d'Albon  and  a  certain  man. 
Madame  du  Deffand  categorically  asserts  that  "no 
one  is  ignorant "  of  this  romance. 


JULIE'S    FATHER  7 

Julie  de  Lespinasse  was,  as  already  detailed, 
the  child  of  this  attachment,  but  she  was  neither 
the  only  one  nor  the  first.  On  June  14,  1731, 
Madame  d'Albon  became  the  mother  of  a  son  who, 
at  his  baptism  in  the  parish  of  Saint-Nizier  at 
Lyons,  received  her  own  first  name  of  Hilaire,  and 
was  registered  as  "son  of  John  Hubert,  merchant, 
and  of  Catherine  Blando."  The  child  has  no 
place  in  this  chronicle.  Reared  secretly  in  some 
unknown  monastery  within  the  city,  on  April  13, 
1750,  being  then  eighteen,  this  lad  followed  his 
mother's  express  desire,  and  assumed  the  habit  of 
a  novice  in  the  Franciscan  Convent  of  Saint  Bona- 
venture.  His  mother's  efforts  having  secured  him 
a  portion  of  several  thousands  of  pounds,  he  took 
the  vows  next  year,  and,  although  no  evidence  is 
forthcoming  in  either  sense,  it  seems  probable  that 
he  lived  his  life  out  in  the  peaceful  oblivion  of  the 
cloisters.  Hilaire  was  twenty  months  old  when 
this  history  opens  with  his  sister's  birth  in  the 
house  of  master  Basiliac. 

The  paternity  of  these  children  is  a  delicate 
question  which  has  defied  the  efforts  of  all  Julie's 
biographers.  The  absolute  silence  of  contemporary 
writers  of  memoirs  upon  this  point  can  only  be  set 
down  to  their  equal  ignorance.  The  name  of 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  did  not  acquire  noto- 
riety until  the  third  of  a  century  had  overlaid  the 
scandal,  while  the  Countess  d'Albon  had  been 
dead  these  twenty  years.  At  the  time  of  the 
intrigue,  it  was  doubtless  one  of  many  subjects 
for  local  gossip  ;  it  occurred  in  the  provinces,  and 


8  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

provincial  scandals  had  not  yet  found  ready  access 
to  Parisian  ears.  The  persons  interested  were, 
moreover,  eminently  in  a  position  to  guard  their 
own  secrets. 

Bachaumont  alone  attempts  to  lift  the  veil. 
Immediately  after  Julie's  death  we  find  this  bold 
announcement  in  his  pages :  "  We  now  know  that 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  was  the  illegitimate 
daughter  of  Cardinal  de  Tencin,  just  as  d'Alembert 
is  the  bastard  of  Madame  de  Tencin — an  identity 
in  origin  and  species  of  origin  which  explains  the 
later  connection  of  the  pair."  It  is  unfortunate 
that  so  ingenuous  an  explanation  commands  no 
sort  of  credence.  The  cardinal  was  fifty-two  years 
old  at  the  date  of  Julie's  birth,  an  age  which  dis- 
poses of  the  story  when  the  state  of  his  health  at 
the  time  is  also  remembered.  His  then  residence 
was  a  hundred  miles  from  Lyons,  and  not  until 
ten  years  later  did  he  remove  to  that  city,  while, 
as  Archbishop  of  Embrun,  his  energies  were  so 
entirely  absorbed  by  a  struggle  with  his  suffragan, 
Soanen,  Bishop  of  Senez,  a  main  pillar  of  Jan- 
senism, that  he  certainly  could  not  have  found 
leisure  for  such  intrigues.  Finally,  the  letters  of 
Madame  du  Deffand,  since  published,  contain  a 
sufficient  refutation  of  the  legend.  "  The  Cardinal 
de  Tencin,"  she  writes,  while  speaking  of  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse,  "  met  her  when  on  a  recent 
visit  to  me,  and  at  once  asked  me  who  she  was. 
I  found  no  difficulty  in  telling  him  under  the  seal 
of  confidence."  Bachaumont's  statement  is  cer- 
tainly without  further  foundation  than  the  two  facts 


JULIE'S    FATHER  9 

that  d'Alembert  and  Julie  occupied  the  same  house, 
and  were  of  like  uncertain  birth.  While  the  world 
was  thus  free  to  imagine  its  own  story,  with  every 
probability  of  never  arriving  at  the  truth,  a  fortu- 
nate chance  turned  my  attention  to  an  entirely  new 
quarter,  and  if  the  hypothesis  now  advanced  is  in- 
capable of  proof,  it  still  wears  every  appearance  of 
reality. 

A  passage  in  my  "  Kingdom  of  the  Rue  Saint- 
Honore"  dwelt  upon  the  long  and  intimate  friend- 
ship uniting  Madame  Geoffrin  and  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse.  Throughout  the  long  period  of 
some  twelve  years,  the  latter  was  little  less  than 
a  member  of  the  famous  household  in  the  Rue 
Saint-Honore,  paying  its  aged  mistress  long  daily 
visits,  and  finding  in  her  the  wisest  counsellor, 
most  generous  protector,  almost  a  second  mother. 
If  ever  the  younger  woman  confided  in  a  human 
being,  this  discreet  and  sure  friend  received  those 
confidences,  and  we  can  deem  it  nothing  else  than 
natural  if  Madame  de  la  Ferte  Imbault,  Madame 
Geoffrin's  daughter,  has  revealed  the  riddle  of 
Julie's  birth.  The  pages  of  the  private  diary, 
which  this  lady  was  nightly  accustomed  to  fill  with 
personal  jottings  and  such  interesting  matters  as 
chanced  to  have  reached  her  during  the  past  day, 
among  many  passages  about  her  mother's  friend 
contain  these  two :  "  She  is  the  illegitimate 
daughter  of  the  Countess  d'Albon  by  Madame 
du  Deffand's  brother,"  and  again,  "  Madame 
du  Deffand's  illegitimate  niece." 

Madame  du  Deffand's  maiden-name  was  Marie 


io  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

de  Vichy  Champrond.  Of  her  two  known  brothers, 
one,  much  younger  than  herself,  forswore  the  world 
at  an  early  age  and  died  canon-treasurer  of  La 
Sainte  Chapelle  at  Paris.  The  remaining  brother, 
Gaspard  III.  de  Vichy,  born  at  Champrond  in  1695, 
and  his  sister's  senior  by  two  years,  is  the  only  one 
to  whom  these  notes  can  apply. 

The  Counts  of  Vichy  were  a  family  of  old  and 
high  nobility,  long  established  in  Forez  and  the 
Maconnais.  Among  the  family's  many  excellent 
marriages,  one  of  the  most  recent  was  an  alliance 
with  their  neighbours,  the  d'Albons.  By  this  mar- 
riage Hilaire  d'Albon  became  the  wife  of  Count 
Gaspard  de  Vichy,  great-grandfather  of  Madame 
du  Deffand  and  her  brother.  Such  close  relation- 
ship, and  the  proximity  of  their  estates,  naturally 
led  to  constant  intercourse  between  the  two  families, 
and  if  Julie  d'Albon  and  Gaspard  de  Vichy,  cousins 
of  like  age  and  close  neighbours,  conceived  a 
mutual  liking,  the  fact  need  not  surprise  us.  The 
one  apparent  objection  to  this  hypothesis  is  capable 
of  an  equally  natural  solution.  Gaspard,  first  com- 
missioned at  the  age  of  twenty,  and  employed  in 
all  the  campaigns  of  the  first  half  of  Louis  XV. 's 
reign,  was  certainly  away  from  home  during  long 
periods.  But  the  years  1727  and  1733,  the  period 
in  which  Julie's  affairs  came  to  a  crisis,  exactly 
correspond  with  an  interval  of  peace  during  which 
the  wanderer  was  at  home,  and  had  ample  leisure 
for  such  an  intrigue  as  that  bluntly  recorded  by 
Madame  de  la  Ferte  Imbault. 

Even  a  double  assertion  of  this  kind  by  Madame 


GASPARD    DE    VICHY  n 

Geoffrin's  daughter  might  be  questioned,  did  not 
strong  circumstantial  evidence  point  to  its  accuracy. 
It  would  be  hard  to  conceive  a  more  natural  ex- 
planation of  the  immediate  and  singular  interest 
taken  by  Madame  du  DefTand  in  a  young  girl, 
thrown  in  her  way  by  the  chance  of  a  brief  resi- 
dence in  the  country.  It  accounts  for  the  heat 
with  which  she  overrides  all  opposition  to  taking 
her  young  friend  to  Paris,  and  the  immediate  place 
found  by  her  in  her  protector's  own  household.  It 
explains  the  zeal  of  this  protector  in  discouraging 
all  inquiry  into  the  mystery  of  the  girl's  birth  ;  her 
rage  and  violent  indignation,  when  she  afterwards 
imagines  herself  betrayed,  not  by  the  stranger 
whom  a  common  arrangement  has  brought  to  share 
her  life,  but  a  woman  of  her  own  blood  for  whom 
she  has  been  at  pains  to  contrive  a  home  and  a 
place  in  the  family.  I  will  not  here  anticipate  the 
future  further  than  to  note  the  extraordinary  re- 
semblance displayed  in  the  character,  tastes,  and 
intellect  of  the  pair,  points  of  which  there  can  be 
no  explanation  so  natural  as  kinship,  but  pass  to 
the  evidence  afforded  by  the  letters  of  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse  herself. 

Certain  of  Julie's  letters  to  Guibert  and  Con- 
dorcet  contain  passages  hitherto  scarcely  intelligible, 
at  best  wearing  every  appearance  of  morbid  over- 
emphasis. In  this  strain  she  writes  to  the  former : 
"  One  day  I  will  tell  you  such  tales  as  are  not  to 
be  found  in  the  novels  either  of  Provost  or  Richard- 
son. The  compound  of  unhappy  circumstances 
that  make  up  my  history  has  taught  me  that  the 


12  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

truth  is  often  too  utterly  incredible.  .  .  .  Oh,  but 
I  can  tell  you  that  men  are  cruel!  Tigers  are 
kind  by  comparison  ! "  The  same  tragic  note  runs 
through  this  to  Condorcet :  "I,  who  have  known 
nothing  but  pain  and  suffering,  I,  who  have 
suffered  atrocities  at  the  very  hands  from  which  I 
should  have  looked  for  nothing  but  gentleness ! " 

These  are  strong  expressions  to  apply  to  the, 
unhappily  too  common,  situation  of  the  child  born 
out  of  wedlock,  and  suffering  for  the  fault  of  which 
it  is  guiltless.  But,  call  Gaspard  de  Vichy  her 
father,  and  we  have  a  key  to  the  woe.  In  1736, 
being  then  forty  years  of  age,  and  Julie  seven,  this 
man  married  Marie  Camille  Diane,  the  Countess 
d'Albon's  legitimate  daughter,  and  his  junior  by 
twenty  years.  Such  a  marriage  with  the  daughter 
of  a  former  mistress,  however  reprehensible  in 
itself,  is  not  without  parallel,  especially  at  this 
epoch.  But  the  situation  becomes  complicated 
when  the  child  of  the  earlier  and  unlawful  connec- 
tion is  reared  under  an  assumed  name  by  a  mother 
who  wishes  to  acknowledge  her  but  dares  not,  and 
in  full  view  of  the  father,  also  a  brother-in-law, 
whose  interests  are  consequently  in  direct  opposi- 
tion to  those  of  his  natural  daughter.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  imagine  what  unhappy  conflicts  and 
miserable  pangs  were  the  inevitable  result  of  such 
confusion. 

Of  what  little  we  know  of  Gaspard  de  Vichy's 
character,  nothing  unhappily  discredits  these 
horrors.  With  the  single  exception  of  the  "  Abbe 
de  Champrond  " — the  simple  and  good-natured  trea- 


GASPARD    DE    VICHY  13 

surer  of  La  Sainte  Chapelle — every  Vichy  in  this 
generation,  Madame  du  Deffand  or  Madame 
d'Aulan  no  less  than  their  brothers,  exhibits  the 
same  characteristics  and  is  cast  in  the  like  mould. 
All  are  spirited  above  the  ordinary,  cultivated  and 
attractive  ;  but  they  are,  also,  hard  and  opinionated 
egoists,  cynical  in  speech  and  unscrupulous  in  act. 
"Certainly,"  writes  a  contemporary,  with  every 
reason  to  know  them,  "they  are  a  unique  collection. 
Our  poor  abbe  has  an  eminently  kind  heart,  but  I 
doubt  the  rest  are  not  sure  whether  they  possess 
such  an  organ."  And  this  criticism  is  the  sad 
confidence  of  Gaspard's  wife  to  her  children  ! 

No  discussion  on  the  point  of  Julie's  birth  can 
close  without  a  reference  to  the  documents,  put  in 
my  hands  by  a  fortunate  chance.  The  marriage  of 
Count  de  Vichy  with  Diane  d'Albon  found  issue  in 
a  son,  Abel  Marie  Claude,  a  boy,  as  already  set  out, 
at  once  the  brother  and  nephew  of  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse.  This  boy,  her  junior  by  eight  years, 
presently  became  the  object  of  her  particular  affec- 
tion. A  mass  of  letters,  written  by  Julie  to  her 
brother — correspondence  hitherto  unknown,  but  one 
of  the  chief  authorities  for  much  in  the  present 
volume — exhibits  the  unmistakable  note  of  an  elder 
sister's  loving  care.  Claiming  no  open  confession  of 
the  sentiment,  their  writer  displays  a  sweet  and 
motherly  concern,  the  sense  that  it  is  both  her  right 
and  duty  to  watch  over  one  whose  happiness,  she 
constantly  repeats,  "  is  dearer  and  more  precious  to 
me  than  anything  else  in  the  world."  This  affection 
stands  out  the  more  clearly  by  contrast  to  her  in- 


i4  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

difference,  not  to  say  hostility,  to  all  that  touches  a 
d'Albon,  a  note  only  too  clearly  apparent  in  such 
sarcasm  as  tinges  these  lines  to  the  same  brother. 
"It  seems  to  me  that  you  see  little,  if  anything,  of 
your  d'Albon  relations,  or  does  this  mean  that  your 
affection  for  them  is  on  the  same  scale?  It  would 
be  a  natural  feeling  enough ! "  The  same  note  is 
yet  more  apparent  in  this  :  "  You  fail  to  tell  me 
if  the  little  d'Albon  still  continues  to  aspire  to  a 
monastery,  or  will  solve  the  problem  by  dying  in  a 
decline.  He  would  be  a  great  loss — his  face  at 
all  events."  But  the  same  writer  becomes  almost 
passionate  where  her  subject  is  Gaspard  de  Vichy's 
son.  Every  circumstance  of  his  life  calls  out  fresh 
interest,  his  wife  when  he  marries,  "the  children, 
whom  I  love  to  distraction."  She  is  his  mentor  in 
all  the  thousand  chances  of  life — his  career,  his 
attitude  towards  the  family,  even  his  investments. 
She  takes  infinite  pains  to  push  his  promotion  while 
in  the  army,  to  obtain  for  him  the  Cross  of  Saint 
Louis,  when  he  retires.  Ill  and  shivering  with 
fever,  she  leaves  her  bed  to  press  some  plea  on 
his  behalf.  "In  a  thousand  years  I  shall  not 
exert  myself  again  as  I  have  just  done  for  you !  " 

Every  page  of  this  correspondence  is  filled  with 
the  caressing  expressions  in  which  a  sister's  tender- 
ness pours  out.  "  All  that  interests  you  is  dear  to 
me,  and  I  shall  always  hold  my  happiness  incom- 
plete while  we  are  condemned  to  live  so  far  apart. 
...  I  loved  you  to  distraction  when  you  were 
a  child.  The  feeling  is  unchanged,  and  will  never 
alter  while  I  live.  ...  All  that  I  do  for  you  is  the 


ABEL    DE    VICHY  15 

one  thing  for  which  there  may  be  no  gratitude,  to 
love  you  with  all  my  heart."  One  of  her  first  letters 
after  their  parting  gently  scolds  him,  boy  as  he  still 
is,  for  a  too  formal  address  towards  herself.  "You 
are,  I  know,  a  pretty  big  boy,  a  man  of  consequence, 
but  remember  that  I  knew  you  when  that  high. 
Then  I  was  your  good  friend  in  name ;  to-day  I  am 
this  in  fact.  And  so,  I  beg  of  you,  do  not  fear  the 
words  which  express  friendship.  I  will  tolerate  no 
Mademoiselle  in  a  letter  from  you.  In  public  one 
bows  to  custom,  but  between  you  and  me  I  will  lose 
nothing." 

Young  Vichy's  backwardness  seems  excusable 
enough,  for  it  appears  certain  that  he  was  long 
ignorant  of  the  truth  about  his  friend's  origin, 
witness  a  letter  with  veiled  allusions  to  the  family's 
earlier  refusal  of  Madame  d'Albon's  great  desire 
that  her  daughter  should  be  recognised.  "  Perhaps 
all  this  is  still  a  sealed  book  to  you,  dear  friend. 
Your  mother  will  give  you  a  key  to  unlock  it." 
The  young  man  naturally  questioned  Countess  de 
Vichy,  and  the  unhappy  impression  of  the  dismal 
truth  upon  his  candid  nature  is  clearly  apparent  in 
this  laconic  entry  in  the  day's  diary.  "  I  had  a  long 
talk  with  mother  about  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse. 
What  horrors  !  "  Abel's  affection  for  his  sister  in- 
creases from  this  date,  becomes,  if  possible,  more 
tender.  He  journeys  to  Paris  especially  to  see  her, 
and  to  show  her  his  wife  and  children  ;  takes  a  more 
active  part  against  her  traducers ;  when  the  time 
comes,  makes  himself  a  place  at  her  bedside,  and 
refuses  to  leave  before  the  end.  "  My  nephew," 


16  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

writes  Madame  du  Deffand  next  day,  "  wished  to  see 
the  will.  He  claimed  a  right  to  this,  and  it  seems 
that  he  had  one,  for  he  certainly  got  his  way." 

This  lengthy  discussion  may  close  with  a  plea 
for  indulgence,  if  only  since  it  anticipates  several 
points  which  must  be  reopened  in  the  course  of  my 
narrative.  But  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the 
problem  of  Julie's  parentage  has  been  regarded  as 
one  of  the  insoluble  enigmas  of  literary  history. 
Material  proof  is  still  lacking,  as  is  usual  in  such 
cases,  but  the  moral  proofs  just  brought  together 
seem  convincing,  and  the  following  narrative  will 
assume  that  they  are  so. 

The  silence  of  contemporary  records  anent  the 
parentage  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  is  broken 
in  regard  to  her  childhood,  but  the  major  part  of 
the  details  to  be  thus  gleaned  are  unfortunately 
apocryphal.  The  most  complete  story  is  La 
Harpe's.  It  is  likewise  the  least  trustworthy — a 
regrettable  fact,  since  his  narration  is  quite  a  drama 
in  brief,  and  lacks  no  element  of  possible  interest. 
The  injured  husband  of  his  tale  kidnaps  the  child 
and  hides  her  in  a  provincial  convent ;  there  the  dis- 
tracted mother  mysteriously  appears,  while  jealous 
legitimate  children  terrify  their  unfortunate  sister 
with  brutal  threats.  "Her  mother  redoubled  her 
fears  by  the  most  solemn  warnings  against  all  who 
might  endeavour  to  visit  her  at  the  convent.  She 
must  partake  of  nothing  which  did  not  emanate 
from  the  kitchen  of  the  house,  decline  all  sweets 
and  flowers,  leave  the  grounds  under  no  pretext 
whatever."  Grimm  is  less  circumstantial,  but 


EARLY   LIFE    AT   AVAUGES          17 

almost  as  ill-informed.  "  She  was  the  daughter 
of  Countess  d'Albon,  who  never  dared  to  own  her. 
Since  she  has  learned  the  full  meaning  of  this 
denial,  she  declines  to  receive  anything  from  her 
mother."  The  errors  in  all  these  recitals  are  little 
less  numerous  than  the  words  in  which  they  are 
couched.  The  truth  is  both  far  from  simple,  and 
far  less  tragic. 

So  far  from  disowning  her  daughter,  the  coun- 
tess at  once  took  Julie  into  her  own  house,  rearing 
her  "  almost  publicly,"  and  in  defiance  of  gossip. 
This  is  the  formal  statement  of  a  man  who  had  the 
story  direct  from  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse's 
mouth,  and  Guibert's  assertion  runs,  point  by  point, 
with  that  of  Madame  du  Deffand  and  the  story  as 
I  have  pieced  it  out  from  papers  in  the  Chateau 
d'Avauges.  The  illegitimate  child  shares  the  nur- 
ture and  education  of  her  mother's  lawful  issue  in 
these  days,  or,  if  there  be  a  distinction  drawn, 
it  is  all  in  favour  of  the  "  love-child."  Madame 
d'Albon' s  usual  residence  at  the  time  was  the  old 
manor-house  at  Avauges,  on  the  road  between 
Lyons  and  Tarare,  a  residence  continuously  occu- 
pied by  successive  heads  of  the  family  since  the 
destruction  of  their  castle  at  Saint-Forgeux  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  Avauges  at  this  time  retained  its 
ramparts,  moats,  and  towers,  all  the  concomitants 
of  a  medieval  feudal  fortress,  but  it  was  rebuilt  in 
1765  in  the  style  of  Louis  XV.,  thus  losing  in  gran- 
deur but  falling  more  into  line  with  newer  ideas  and 
customs.  The  old  stronghold  has  now  perished, 
but  no  vandal  hands  have  been  able  to  mar  the 

B 


i8  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

charms  of  its  former  site  in  the  fertile  valley  watered 
by  the  Turdine,  or  the  splendid  panorama  of  a 
horizon  on  which  the  long  line  of  wooded  hill-tops 
of  the  Forez  range  is  crowned  by  the  three  moun- 
tains Tarare,  Saint  Loup,  and  Saint  Remain. 

Julie  de  Lespinasse  passed  her  earliest  years 
in  this  lordly  house.  Of  the  Countess  d'Albon's 
legitimate  children,  the  daughter  Diane  was  her 
senior  by  sixteen  years,  a  disparity  in  age  preclud- 
ing any  comradeship  or  affinity  in  tastes.  But 
Camille,  born  in  1724,  was  still  a  child,  and  so 
much  her  companion  that  Madame  du  Deffand  can 
write,  "  she  spent  her  youth  with  him."  Sincere 
and  mutual  affection  was  the  fruit  of  these  early 
days,  the  first  influences  so  potent  in  their  impres- 
sion upon  all  after  life.  It  survived  their  later 
separation,  and  was  broken  only  by  a  cruel  mis- 
understanding many  years  later.  This  quiet  and 
uneventful  life  was  disturbed  in  its  eighth  year  by 
two  events,  the  marriage  of  Diane  with  Gaspard 
de  Vichy,  and  Camille's  entry  into  the  army. 
The  lad's  departure  doubtless  lost  Julie  a  joyous 
comrade,  and  condemned  her  to  the  monotonous 
existence  of  an  only  child  ;  but  the  marriage  of 
her  elder  sister,  celebrated  at  Avauges  on  Novem- 
ber 1 8,  1739,  led  to  results  of  a  darker  kind,  for  the 
long  roll  of  her  misfortunes  may  be  said  to  begin 
from  this  date. 

The  idea,  and  final  arrangement,  of  such  a  mar- 
riage could  only  cost  Madame  d'Albon  the  deepest 
remorse  and  many  tears.  No  record,  indeed,  re- 
mains to  tell  us  of  the  long  mental  struggle,  the 


REMORSE   OF  COUNTESS   D'ALBON    19 

heart-rending  agonies  endured  by  the  poor  woman, 
but  her  deep  and  bitter  suffering  is  sufficiently  to  be 
understood  from  the  immediate  change  in  her  habits 
of  life.  Tenderness  turns  to  exaltation,  dreaminess 
to  mysticism  ;  a  natural  melancholy  becomes  the 
darkest  depression.  Alone  with  the  child  whose 
very  existence  is  the  endless  reminder  of  her  sin, 
she  seems  haunted  by  prevision  of  the  storms 
awaiting  this  frail  life,  and  eternally  reproaches 
herself  with  the  pains  and  disillusionment  in  store 
for  a  daughter  only  too  like  herself.  Already  ailing 
as  she  was,  the  presentiment  of  early  death  unduly 
darkened  her  prevision  of  the  lot  of  the  orphan  left 
alone,  or  dependent  upon  a  father  with  little  real 
affection  for  her  and  so  placed  that  he  must  look 
askance  upon  a  daughter  who  could  be  nothing 
but  a  vexatious  encumbrance  at  best,  and  the 
cause  of  complications  from  which  she  herself 
would  be  the  first  to  suffer. 

A  dream,  now  taking  shape  in  the  Countess 
d'Albon's  mind,  was  the  natural  outcome  of  such 
ponderings.  Whatever  the  facts,  and  despite  the 
then  separation  between  the  count  and  herself, 
Julie  had  been  born  within  the  term  of  that  mar- 
riage, and  christened  first  with  her  mother's 
first  name,  and  next  with  that  of  a  family  estate. 
She  had  been  bred  up  at  Avauges  under  her  own 
constant  care.  All  this  amounted  to  a  public  con- 
fession of  motherhood,  which  might  surely  condone 
the  irregular  conditions  of  the  child's  actual  entry 
upon  this  life,  and  the  imposture  committed  at  the 
baptism.  All  her  desires  centred  on  the  possibility 


20  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

of  legalising  the  bastard,  of  giving  to  Julie  place 
and  name,  with  the  rights  inseparable  from  it,  a 
lawful  daughter's  share  in  the  family  inheritance. 
Dubiously  feasible  as  the  project  may  seem  to  us, 
we  can  read  the  seriousness  of  the  discussion  in  the 
fears  of  those  whose  interests  would  have  suffered 
by  such  an  act  of  reparation,  the  way  in  which  they 
afterwards  exercised  themselves  to  obtain  Julie's 
promise  never  to  pursue  the  idea,  and  finally, 
despite  this  promise  and  almost  up  to  the  day  of 
her  death,  their  careful  precautions  against  the 
eventuality  of  any  such  attempt.  Certainly,  no  act 
of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  ever  justified  these 
fears,  but,  also,  she  never  denied  her  origin.  Her 
correspondence  teems  with  the  plainest  allusions  to 
this,  and  many  of  her  letters,  to  members  of  the 
family  and  friends  alike,  are  sealed  with  the  d'Albon 
arms  engraved  on  the  lozenge-shaped  shield  used 
by  unmarried  daughters. 

Whatever  the  prospect  of  success,  Madame 
d'Albon  clung  tenaciously  to  the  hope  of  restoring 
to  her  daughter  all  the  advantages  of  a  legitimate 
status.  It  is  only  too  easy  to  understand  how  the 
chief  obstacle  to  this  was  her  own  son-in-law,  or 
how,  whatever  might  have  been  their  position  with- 
out his  influence,  Diane  and  Camille  neglected  no 
means  of  thwarting  such  maternal  hopes.  Singu- 
larly painful  scenes  were  the  natural  result,  and  it 
is  these  miserable  squabbles  to  which  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse  alludes  in  her  bitter  letter  to  Abel  de 
Vichy.  "  You  at  all  events  know  the  tenderness 
of  my  affection  for  your  mother.  She  has  over- 


MOTHER   AND    DAUGHTER         21 

whelmed  me  with  proofs  of  her  goodness  and 
affection,  and  although  she  has  denied  herself  the 
establishment  of  my  life's  happiness,  thanks  to  a 
scruple  more  than  praiseworthy  in  itself,  no  doubt, 
yet  one  which  might  have  found  its  counterpoise 
in  the  wonderful  consequences  to  myself,  I  shall 
never  regret  my  immense  loss  on  this  account 
if  she  comes  to  understand  that  my  feeling  for 
her  is  to  the  same  extent  more  lively  and  more 
real  than  that  of  those  others  for  whose  sake  she 
has  herself  made  immense  sacrifices." 

Unable  to  secure  her  daughter's  future  in  any 
regular  way,  Madame  d'Albon  would  gladly  have 
seen  her  safe  within  the  walls  of  a  convent,  then 
even  more  than  to-day  the  natural  refuge  of  life's 
poor  children.  The  terms  of  her  will  leave  no 
room  for  doubt  upon  this  point.  But  here  again  the 
countess  found  her  path  insurmountably  barred. 
Young  as  the  child  was,  her  spirit  and  aspirations 
revolted  absolutely  before  the  silent  peacefulness, 
the  anticipated  death,  of  the  nunnery.  Her  ardent 
heart  and  passionate  disposition  were  already  dis- 
playing that  activity  of  mind,  the  curious  intelli- 
gence and  fierce  lust  of  living,  of  which  neither 
age,  sickness,  nor  a  very  sea  of  troubles  could 
ever  quite  extinguish  the  fires.  "  If  I  have  often 
fallen  to  saying  that  life  is  the  grand  evil,  I  have 
sometimes  felt  it  a  supreme  good,  and  the  wish 
that  they  had  never  been  born,  so  often  found  in 
the  mouth  of  the  unhappy,  shall  certainly  never 
pass  my  lips.  Indeed  and  indeed,  let  my  present 
mood  call  for  the  release  of  death,  I  render  thanks 


22  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

to  that  order  of  creation  under  which  I  came  to  be 
born." 

Foiled  in  her  hopes  this  second  time,  Madame 
d'Albon's  redoubled  fears  contemplated  the  future 
of  the  innocent  creature,  whom  she  must  so  soon 
leave  to  face  life  alone.  Unable  to  contain  these 
terrors,  she  could  not  refrain  from  imparting  them 
to  her  in  whom  they  had  their  origin,  and  the  child 
received  the  half-veiled  confidences  of  her  sorrow 
and  remorse.  "  Often,"  says  Guibert,  "  she  would 
secretly  bathe  her  daughter's  face  with  her  tears. 
The  unhappy  mother  seemed  to  hope  that,  as  she 
overwhelmed  her  with  caresses  and  favours,  all 
this  tenderness  might  in  some  way  compensate  her 
daughter  for  the  sad  benefit  of  her  birth."  A  letter 
of  Julie  herself  to  Condorcet  contains  a  startling 
confirmation  of  this.  "  By  a  surely  singular  con- 
trariety, my  childhood  was  troubled  by  the  very 
care  taken  to  exercise  and  exalt  my  sensibilities. 
Terror  and  fear  were  my  familiars  long  before  I 
could  either  think  or  judge." 

In  the  month  of  August  1746  Madame  d'Albon, 
feeling  that  the  end  could  not  be  delayed  much 
longer,  summoned  her  notary  to  Avauges.  A 
clause  in  her  will  thus  refers  to  Julie  :  "  I  bequeathe 
to  Julie  Jeanne  Eleonore  Lespinasse,  daughter  of 
Claude  Lespinasse  and  Julie  Navarre,  an  annual 
allowance  of  three  hundred  livres l  for  the  term  of 
her  life,  and  I  direct  that  the  said  sum  be  payable 
to  her  as  to  one  half-part  at  each  half-year,  the  first 

1  The  livre  varied  in  value  between  20  and  25  sous  in  the  various 
provinces.     The  franc  was  coined  to  supersede  it. 


JULIE'S    LEGACY  23 

payment  to  be  made  at  my  decease,  and  payment 
thenceforward  to  be  made  in  advance ;  the  said 
allowance  shall  be  for  the  maintenance,  education, 
and  nurture  of  the  said  Lespinasse,  in  such  convent 
as  she  may  at  her  election  choose  to  enter  until 
such  time  as  she  marry,  attain  her  majority,  or 
assume  the  veil,  in  each  or  either  of  which  events 
I  direct  that  my  heir  shall  disburse  the  sum  of  six 
thousand  livres  as  dowry  for  the  said  Lespinasse, 
on  entering  religion,  marriage,  or  attaining  her 
majority,  and  the  sum  aforesaid  I  hereby  acknow- 
ledge to  have  been  by  me  received  in  trust  for  the 
said  Lespinasse,  the  payment  of  which  sum  not- 
withstanding she  shall  continue  to  enjoy  the  said 
annuity  of  three  hundred  livres  during  the  term 
of  her  natural  life,  or  an  annuity  of  two  hundred 
livres  if  she  enter  a  house  of  religion.  .  .  .  This 
being  my  intent,  I  hereby  declare  my  heir  free  and 
discharged  of  the  said  payment  of  the  sum  of  six 
thousand  livres  in  case  the  said  Lespinasse  shall 
have  married  or  entered  a  house  of  religion  during 
the  period  of  my  life,  notwithstanding  always  that 
in  this  event  I  shall  myself  have  paid  the  said  sum 
of  six  thousand  livres,  in  the  which  event  my  heir 
shall  remain  bound  for  the  due  discharge  of  the 
annuity  only  as  aforesaid." * 

The  dowry  and  annuity  thus  left  to  her  daughter 
by  the  Countess  d'Albon  may  appear  by  no  means 
unduly  large  or  in  proportion  to  her  income,  for, 
heavily  as  her  inheritance  had  suffered,  she  was 
still  far  from  poor.  The  discrepancy  is,  however, 

1  Countess  d'Albon  died  on  April  6  in  the  following  year,  1748. 


24  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

easily  accounted  for,  if  we  remember  that  this  will 
is  made  in  due  form,  fully  witnessed.  In  such  a 
document,  Madame  d'Albon  must  perforce  treat 
her  daughter  like  any  stranger,  but,  having  thus 
observed  the  conventions,  she  sought  to  make 
redress  by  means  of  a  simple  gift.  Madame  du 
Deffand  records  that  "  a  cabinet  in  her  room  con- 
tained a  sufficiently  large  sum  of  money  "  set  aside 
for  this  purpose,  and  that,  shortly  before  the  end, 
she  caused  Julie  to  be  summoned  to  her  bedside, 
gave  her  the  key  of  the  cabinet,  and  "  bade  her 
keep  the  contents  for  her  personal  use."  Unfor- 
tunately, no  sooner  was  her  mother  dead,  than  the 
girl's  first  care  was  to  restore  the  whole  to  her 
brother.  "  She  led  Monsieur  d'Albon  to  the  said 
bureau,  gave  him  the  key,  and  insisted  on  his 
taking  the  entire  contents,"  refusing  to  receive  for 
herself  a  single  penny  out  of  moneys  upon  which  she 
could  have  no  sort  of  lawful  claim.  The  generosity 
of  so  disinterested  an  action  is  only  to  be  compared 
with  its  imprudence,  for,  having  stripped  herself  of 
the  ability  to  stand  alone,  Julie  remained  at  the 
mercy  of  those  who  might  wish  to  control  her 
future. 

Julie  de  Lespinasse  was  sixteen  when  she  lost 
the  mother  whom  she  loved  with  much  tenderness, 
and  of  whose  memory  she  was  to  write,  "  it  has 
always  been  to  me  both  dear  and  the  subject  of 
reverence."  Her  intense  grief  touched  the  least 
sympathetic,  and  the  pain  of  it  was  much  increased 
by  her  fears  of  the  loneliness  to  follow.  Camille 
d'Albon,  "who  had  always  treated  her  as  his  real 


CHAMPROND  25 

sister,"  and  evinced  real  affection  for  her,  being 
recalled  to  his  duties  as  an  officer  in  the  cavalry, 
found  it  impossible  to  assume  charge  of  so  young  a 
girl  in  a  garrison  town.  She  was  thus  thrown  upon 
the  compassion  of  the  Count  and  Countess  de  Vichy, 
and  the  Marquise  du  Deffand  asserts  that  their 
"spontaneous"  offer  of  a  home  was  "very  gladly 
accepted."  Whatever  the  truth  of  this  gladness,  it 
is  certain  that  the  removal  to  the  Vichys'  estate  at 
Champrond,  and  the  severance  of  all  those  precious 
memories  which  bound  her  to  the  old  manor  of 
Avauges,  entailed  a  change  of  life  little  less  radical 
than  if  one  should  root  some  tender  plant  from  its 
special  plot  and  cast  it  to  wither  on  ground  quite  un- 
suited  to  its  need,  under  inclement  and  sunless  skies. 

Champrond,  created  a  county  by  letters  under 
date  1644,  lay  on  the  border  between  the  Macon- 
nais  and  Lyonnais,  in  the  small  district  of 
Ligny-en-Brionnais.  Beyond  a  few  ruined  walls, 
nothing  now  remains  of  the  old  chateau,  sold  by  the 
Revolutionary  government  as  the  property  of  the 
Emigres;  but  a  detailed  description,  dated  1735, 
affords  a  sufficiently  accurate  idea  of  the  house 
in  which  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  passed  four 
years  of  her  life. 

A  "stronghold"  rather  than  a  pleasure-house, 
Champrond  consisted  of  "a  great  square  tower, 
flanked  by  long  wings  to  left  and  right,  the  whole 
surrounded  by  a  moat  crossed  by  a  drawbridge." 
The  severe  aspect  of  this  pile  was  relieved  by  two 
grand  terraces,  "one  to  the  north-east,  the  other  to 
the  south " ;  a  formal  garden,  a  pigeon-house,  a 


26  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

stream  which  wound  through  the  park,  "long  alleys 
of  wych-elm,"  and  an  old  chapel  at  the  end  of  one 
of  these.  Moderate  as  the  wealth  of  its  owners 
appears  to  have  been,  their  household  included  all 
the  numerous  functionaries  then  deemed  inseparable 
from  the  estate  of  a  gentleman — almoner,  steward, 
major-domo,  two  cooks,  four  lackeys,  a  coachman, 
and  two  postillions,  besides  "  two  secretaries  and  an 
assistant-governess."  Some  idea  of  the  luxurious 
furnishing  of  the  house  may  be  obtained  from  the 
record  of  the  sale  decreed  in  1793.  It  lasted 
an  entire  month,  and  produced  a  sum  of  forty- 
eight  thousand  livres — high  figures  for  that  age. 

Until  Julie's  arrival,  Count  and  Countess  de 
Vichy  and  their  children  were  the  sole  regular 
inmates  of  the  chateau.  Gaspard,  still  robust 
despite  his  full  fifty-three  years,  and  a  retired 
major-general,  ruled  his  family  estates  with  the 
imperious  strictness  and  harshly  minute  scrutiny 
characteristic  of  all  his  actions,  and  relaxed  only 
on  the  rare  occasions  when  policy  sent  him  to 
Paris,  since  his  sister,  Madame  du  Deffand,  lived 
there  and  he  aspired  to  her  inheritance. 

The  countess,  an  intelligent  and  clever  woman, 
but  entirely  subservient  to  a  husband  much  older 
than  herself  and  of  whom  she  stood  in  fear,  was 
entirely  absorbed  in  the  care  of  her  children.  At 
the  time  of  Julie's  arrival  she  was  expecting  her 
third  child.  This  daughter,  born  only  six  weeks 
after  Madame  d'Albon's  death,  was  christened 
Anne  Camille,  but  the  child  appears  to  have 
died  in  infancy.  Of  her  two  elder  children,  Abel 


ABEL   DE   VICHY  27 

Claude  Marie  was  just  turning  his  ninth  year, 
whilst  his  brother,  Alexandre  Mariette,  was  three 
years  younger.  Of  this  latter,  little  record  need  be 
made.  Hot-tempered,  weak-willed,  the  subject  of 
fits  of  rage  which  raised  serious  doubts  as  to  his 
sanity,  he  disliked  companionship  from  his  earliest 
years,  and  lived  in  surly,  usually  solitary,  aloofness. 
Before  the  boy  could  be  fairly  called  a  youth,  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  leaving  home  and  completely 
disappearing  for  months  at  a  time.  His  death, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  came  to  the  family  as 
a  relief  rather  than  a  cause  for  sorrow. 

Abel's  character  was  of  a  very  different  kind, 
and  seldom  have  two  brothers  developed  greater 
or  more  startling  dissimilarities  after  an  identical 
up-bringing,  the  one  crazy,  restless,  and  morose, 
the  other  almost  as  signally  sweet,  tractable,  and 
sane.  Age  and  education  merely  increased  this 
lad's  natural  excellences.  In  such  of  his  letters 
as  have  come  down  to  us,  and  a  diary,  we  see  an 
upright  and  loyal  lad,  deliberate  in  action,  chaste 
and  sensible,  of  moderate  wits,  lacking  in  brilliance, 
but  overcoming  this  deficiency  by  strength  of  will 
and  a  simple  common  sense ;  a  boy,  indeed,  worthy 
at  all  points  of  the  witness  borne  by  Julie  when 
she  writes,  "  I  loved  you  with  all  my  heart  when 
you  were  still  of  the  tenderest  years,  but  to  this 
sentiment  has  been  added  the  esteem  always 
evoked  when  an  upright  spirit  is  found  wedded 
to  a  strong  will."  I  need  not  repeat  what  I  have 
already  said  of  the  immediate  affection  conceived 
by  the  girl  for  this  child,  eight  years  her  junior, 


28  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

and  to  whom  she  was  so  nearly  related  by  ties  not 
to  be  confessed.  Abel  was  her  comfort  in  sad 
hours  through  all  the  four  years  spent  with  the 
Vichys,  the  one  real  joy  which  sometimes  scattered 
the  clouds  of  her  habitual  melancholy. 

Guibert,  usually  well-informed,  says  that  it  was 
in  Champrond  that  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse 
first  learned  the  full  truth  about  her  birth.  "  They 
\i.e.  her  relations]  made  her  understand  who  she 
was.  .  .  .  In  a  single  minute  she  found  herself  re- 
duced to  the  position  of  an  orphan  and  a  stranger. 
A  disdainful  and  barbarous  charity  thus  took  in 
charge  the  unfortunate  girl,  hitherto  surrounded  by 
every  care  known  to  natural  affection  and  remorse." 
Whatever  the  effects  of  this  sudden  revelation, 
Julie's  earlier  days  in  the  chateau  appear  to  have 
been  moderately  calm  and  peaceful.  Reading  and 
work  filled  the  day.  Here  she  finished  her  educa- 
tion, interrupted  at  Avauges,  now  studying  on  her 
own  account,  now  busying  herself  with  the  chil- 
dren's lessons.  Doubtless  her  taste  was  finally 
formed,  and  her  wit  sharpened  at  a  later  date — we 
shall  see  in  what  an  incomparable  school — but  the 
brilliant  polish  acquired  in  after  years  rested  on 
the  sure  foundations  to  be  laid  by  early  study 
alone.  "  She  was  no  wise  woman,"  writes  a  con- 
temporary, "but  she  was  excellently  informed. 
She  knew  English  and  Italian,  and  was  acquainted 
with  the  literature  of  several  other  tongues  through 
the  medium  of  our  best  translations.  No  one 
known  to  me  has  so  fully  possessed  the  precious 
gift  of  seizing  the  right  word.  She  grew  up  on 


JULIE'S    LOVE    OF   CHILDREN        29 

Racine,  Voltaire,  and  la  Fontaine ;  she  knew  them 
by  heart." 

The  year  following  Julie's  arrival  at  Champ- 
rond,  Monsieur  and  Madame  Vichy  passed  the 
winter  in  Paris,  leaving  their  children  in  her  sole 
charge.  Young  as  she  was,  single-handed,  and 
with  none  to  counsel  her,  the  girl  undertook  the 
care  of  three  children,  the  eldest  among  them 
scarcely  turned  ten,  and  the  youngest  still  in  the 
cradle,  and  devoted  herself  to  this  precocious 
mothering  without  a  murmur.  Her  marked  taste 
for  children  can,  indeed,  be  noticed  at  every  stage 
in  her  life.  She  seems  to  understand  their  nature 
and  admire  their  graceful  ways.  "If  you  cared  for 
them  a  trifle  more,"  she  writes  to  Guibert  at  a 
later  date,  "  I  would  confide  in  you  my  idea  that 
I  observe  some  affinity  with  them  in  everything 
that  attracts.  A  child  has  so  much  grace,  such 
adaptability,  and  is  so  natural.  After  all,  what 
is  Harlequin  but  half  a  cat  and  half  a  child, 
and  was  there  ever  his  superior  in  charm  ? " 
Julie's  conduct  of  her  little  kingdom  on  this  occa- 
sion won  her  the  adoration  of  its  subjects.  Even 
their  parents,  so  frigid  as  a  rule,  allowed  a  trifle  of 
gratitude  to  pass  their  lips.  Three  years  later 
Madame  du  Deffand  writes  of  this :  "  They  were 
loud  in  their  praises,  telling  me  how  much  they 
owed  her  for  her  infinite  trouble  in  educating  their 
daughter." 

The  return  of  the  count  and  his  wife  none 
the  less  marks  the  commencement  of  a  less  peace- 
ful period.  On  the  exact  point  at  issue  the  vaguest 


3o  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

and  most  incomplete  particulars  are  available,  but 
it  was  not  long  before  the  existing  order  of  things 
became  clearly  intolerable,  and  life  at  Champrond 
a  little  hell  on  earth.  Expressions  used  by  Guibert 
and  Madame  du  Deffand  seem  to  suggest  that, 
struck  by  the  unexpected  aptitudes  evinced  by 
their  ward,  Count  and  Countess  Guibert  sought  to 
exploit  this  for  their  own  advantage,  more  or  less 
consciously  pressing  Julie  into  the  position  of  a 
governess,  without  salary  and,  equally,  without 
any  particular  claims  to  consideration  or  the  cour- 
tesies. An  appeal  to  her  heart  might  have  induced 
her  to  play  such  a  part,  but  this  attempt  to  impose 
it  called  up  instant  revolt.  She  was  certainly  no 
woman  to  accept  the  treatment  of  an  inferior  from 
her  equals,  even  if  she  had  not  shared  the  know- 
ledge that  their  blood  ran  in  her  own  veins. 
Certain  passages  in  her  letters  point  to  the  further 
probability  that  tension  existed  in  respect  of  the 
incurable  fears,  now  as  always  at  work  in  the 
family,  lest  any  consideration  shown  her — her  very 
freedom  of  the  family  roof — might  be  used  to  sup- 
port an  attempt  to  recover  her  mother's  name  and 
a  share  in  her  fortune.  There  arose  in  this  way  an 
affectation  of  reserves,  galling  supervision,  incessant 
reminders,  less  in  word  than  in  the  very  terms  of 
existence,  of  the  bastard's  smirch  under  which  her 
young  pride  suffered  so  cruelly.  With  a  nature  as 
fine  and  impressionable,  as  quick  to  distinguish 
shades  and  suggestions ;  a  soul  ever  alert,  and  of 
the  quality  to  which  judgment  and  feeling  are 
synonymous  terms,  it  is  easy  to  understand  what 


TROUBLES    IN    CHAMPROND        31 

dumb  irritation  and,  presently,  fierce  resentment 
filled  the  heart  of  this  girl  of  twenty.  Numerous 
violent  scenes  occurred,  and  words  were  exchanged 
of  the  kind  never  forgotten,  for  which  no  reparation 
can  be  made.  Always  intense  in  her  feelings,  she 
can  now  see  her  relations  in  no  light  but  that  of 
"barbarian  persecutors,"  and  is  visited  with  those 
moods  of  acute  despair  to  which  death  appears  as 
a  haven  of  refuge.  "  She  survived,"  writes  Guibert, 
after  receiving  her  confidences  on  these  evil  days, 
"  because  grief  does  not  kill  at  that  age  ;  more 
correctly,  because  that  age  is  not  yet  acquainted 
with  grief." 

Two  years  of  this  lamentable  existence  saw  her 
endurance  at  an  end,  and  her  mind  made  up.  She 
will  no  longer  eat  the  bitter  bread  of  a  heartless  pity, 
but  will  abandon  an  asylum  which  yields  nothing 
but  humiliations  and  slights.  The  aspirations  of  a 
soul,  ever  fluttering  its  wings  toward  the  mirage- 
light  of  life's  unknown  allurements,  shall  be  crushed 
down,  and  her  mother's  last  wish  fulfilled  by  her 
entry  into  a  convent.  Her  eldest  brother,  Camille 
d'Albon,  "on  whose  friendship  she  pinned  her 
faith,  and  who  had  always  treated  her  as  his  real 
sister,"  should  advise  her,  help  her  even  with  his 
purse  to  complete,  if  needful,  a  sufficient  sum  to 
dower  her  as  a  nun.  No  sooner  was  the  project 
formed,  than  Julie  pursued  it  hot-foot.  She  wrote 
to  Count  d'Albon  to  inform  him  of  her  "unassail- 
able resolution,"  and  appealed  to  his  brotherly 
devotion. 

At  this  juncture,  and   in   the   midst   of  these 


32  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

preparations,  a  chance  new  -  comer,  arriving  at 
Champrond,  swept  away  the  entire  fabric  of  her 
plans.  Her  disordered  ship  is  thenceforth  steered 
directly  back  to  the  deep  from  which  it  had  so  lately 
turned.  Julie  sails  at  last  for  the  large  horizon  of 
seas  sown  with  reefs  and  peopled  with  tempests, 
and  the  pilot,  author  of  this  revolution,  need  scarcely 
be  named  as  the  Marquise  du  Deffand. 


CHAPTER    II 

The  Marquise  du  Deffand — Three  periods  in  her  life — State  of  her  mind  on 
arrival  at  Champrond — Rapid  intimacy  with  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse 
— Spiritual  and  physical  portrait  of  Julie  in  her  twentieth  year — First 
project  of  living  with  Madame  du  Deffand — Julie  leaves  the  Vichys — 
Period  of  her  stay  at  Lyons — Complicated  negotiations  with  Madame  du 
Deffand — Opposition  of  Count  d'Albon — Julie  decides  to  live  in  Paris. 

FEW  women  of  the  eighteenth  century  are  either 
more  celebrated,  or  better  deserve  their  fame,  than 
she  whose  appearance  at  Champrond  so  changed 
the  life  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse.  This 
Madame  du  Deffand  of  history  is  the  old  friend 
of  Walpole  and  the  Duchesse  de  Choiseul,  the 
coiner  of  sparkling  epigrams,  and  the  correspon- 
dent many  of  whose  letters  may  well  bear  com- 
parison with  those  of  Madame  de  SeVigne.  But 
the  story  of  her  youth,  the  school  wherein  her 
mind  was  formed,  her  family  history,  or  the 
more  intimate  details  of  her  career,  are  shrouded 
in  a  certain  obscurity  which  it  seems  that  she  was 
at  no  pains  to  dissipate.  Our  interest,  however,  lies 
with  just  this  aspect  of  her  personality,  and  before 
developing  the  large  question  of  her  place  in  Julie's 
life,  I  may  sketch  the  portrait  revealed  by  the 
careful  researches  of  my  predecessors  and  my  own 
inquiries. 

Gaspard  de  Vichy's  younger  sister   Marie  was 
born  at  Champrond  on  the  25th  of  December  1697. 


34  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Early  committed  to  the  care  of  the  Benedictines 
of  La  Madeleine  du  Traisnel  at  Paris,  she  passed 
her  entire  youth  in  the  scarcely  edifying  atmo- 
sphere of  a  convent  in  little  but  the  name,  and  under 
an  abbess,  Fran9oise  d'Arbouze  de  Villemont,  who 
was  credited  with  according  her  favours  to  a 
list  of  adorers  ranging  from  the  Marquis  d'Argen- 
son  to  the  flute-player  Descoteaux.  The  pupil's 
subsequent  confession  that  she  learned  nothing  in 
so  dubious  and  nighty  an  atmosphere,  but  pieced 
out  her  own  education  after  leaving  the  place,  is 
hardly  surprising.  Nor  need  we  wonder  unduly 
if  her  lost  faith  declined  to  rise  anew  under  the 
eloquence  of  Massillon,  sent  by  an  aunt,  the 
Duchesse  de  Luynes,  to  combat  the  recusancy 
of  this  horribly  precocious  child  of  ten.  "  My 
astonished  spirit  trembled  before  his,"  she  re- 
calls in  after  years,  "  but  I  surrendered  to  the 
importance  of  the  reasoner,  not  the  power  of  his 
arguments."  Champfort's  record  of  the  astound- 
ing interview  asserts  that,  having  carefully  heard 
her  objections,  Massillon  retired  with  a  "She's  a 
charming  child."  Asked,  however,  to  suggest  the 
most  likely  book  to  convince  his  disputant,  his 
sole  reply  was  "  A  penny  catechism  !  " 

In  her  twenty-first  year  Julie  de  Vichy  married 
the  Marquis  du  Deffand,  a  man  of  good  birth  but 
a  poor  husband,  in  character  mediocre  and  meddle- 
some, "at  a  thousand  little  pains  to  displease,"  as 
she  concisely  remarks.  A  single  step  from  the 
cloister  launched  the  young  wife  on  the  court  of  the 
Regent.  The  consequences  of  her  daily  intimacy 


PRESIDENT    RENAULT  35 

with  his  favourites  and  mistresses  need  not  be  dwelt 
upon.  We  may  well  follow  the  prudent  reserve 
of  their  heroine  and  cast  a  veil  over  passing  aberra- 
tions, which  left  her  full  of  self-disgust  and  pro- 
foundly contemptuous  of  those  who  had  shared 
them.  Satiated  by  ten  years  of  such  follies,  and 
determined  to  reform,  she  doubly  fortified  her 
purpose  by  obtaining  a  formal  separation  from  her 
husband  and  engaging  in  a  serious  intrigue.  The 
method  hardly  commends  itself  to  modern  taste, 
but  in  adopting  it  Madame  du  Deffand  merely 
kept  touch  with  an  age  in  which  it  was  the  accus- 
tomed refuge  of  women  in  search  of  the  quiet  life 
and  a  fireside  of  almost  conjugal  tranquillity.  Her 
choice  was  that  of  a  woman  both  wise  and  intelli- 
gent, and  she  could  certainly  point  to  the  happiest 
results. 

At  this  time,  the  year  1730,  President  Henalilt 
was  in  his  forty-fifth  year.  Of  striking  presence, 
bright-eyed,  and  of  a  florid  complexion,  with  fine 
and  well-kept  hands,  he  was  a  typical  worldly 
and  lettered  magistrate  of  an  age  now  passed — 
fluent  as  a  speaker,  as  a  writer  nourished  on  the 
sound  old  classical  stuff,  ready  to  pass,  as  at  a 
game,  from  grave  historical  arguments  to  the 
lightest  scenario  of  a  ballet  at  the  Opera,  from 
gallant  rondeaux  to  the  pompous  measure  of  a 
tragedy.  Serious,  yet  no  pedant ;  loving  his  joke, 
but  never  descending  to  silliness  ;  free  of  tongue,  yet 
without  offence ;  enjoying  life,  but  no  libertine ;  a 
delicate  walker  in  all  his  pleasures ;  an  upright 
gentleman,  with  a  pretty  taste  in  wines  and  at 


36  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

the  table,  the  President  was  in  one  word  and  in 
every  respect  "entirely  amiable,"  according  to  his 
generation's  acceptance  of  the  phrase.  In  all  the 
varied  spheres  through  which  he  moved,  at  court 
or  in  the  salons,  in  Parliament  or  the  Academy, 
the  wings  at  the  Opera  or  the  boudoir  of  a  pretty 
lady,  he  was  ever  the  man,  entirely  at  his  ease 
and  in  the  right  place,  of  whom  the  excellent 
Due  de  Luynes  is  moved  to  speak  with  thus 
boundless  admiration.  "  He  is  the  most  knowing 
man-of-the-world  in  every  respect — in  respect,  at 
all  events,  of  whatever  is  socially  useful  and 
agreeable."  Even  caustic  d'Argenson  does  no 
more  than  flavour  his  honey  with  gall.  "He  has 
wit,  grace,  delicacy,  and  tact ;  successfully  cultivates 
music,  poetry,  and  light  literature,  and  is  never 
either  first-class  or  superior,  stupid  or  flat." 

But  if  men  could  praise  thus,  women  almost 
pursued  him.  They  "  doted "  on  him,  and  he 
seldom  proved  cruel.  He  was,  indeed,  a  discreet 
man,  of  a  sweet  and  indulgent  temper,  capable  of 
friendship,  and  perhaps  of  tenderness,  of  passion 
never  ; — as  one  may  perceive,  the  ideal  lover  for  a 
woman  of  thirty,  something  notorious  for  the  faults 
of  her  youth,  and  seeking,  above  all  else,  an  amiable 
and  trusty  companion,  a  man  to  stand  for  her 
against  the  slanderer,  a  guide  and  strong  arm  for 
the  ever  difficult  way  which  leads  from  youth  to 
maturity.  Henault  was  all  this  to  Madame  du 
Deffand.  Calculation  and  expediency  pushed  her 
to  the  connection.  It  rapidly  restored  her  lost 
consideration,  and  became  the  solid  foundation 


RENAULT  AND  MME.  DU  DEFFAND    37 

on  which  was  built  the  edifice  of  her  new  career. 
He  rendered  yeoman  service  in  this  kind,  but  her 
gentler  wares  repaid  him  fully.  Blasde  and  weary 
she  might  be,  but  her  weariness  was  shot  with 
the  piquant  and  ever  fresh  play  of  her  wit.  She 
became  the  solace  of  his  leisure,  the  incomparable 
attraction  at  his  famous  suppers.  Whatever  the 
occasional  tyrannies  of  his  mistress,  the  demand 
of  her  changing  humours,  Henault  is  presently 
dependent  on  the  atmosphere  with  which  she 
has  infused  existence.  "You  are  my  necessary 
evil,"  he  writes  when  the  relation  is  already  ten 
years  old. 

Nevertheless,  neither  on  the  one  side  nor  the 
other  did  this  connection  ever  evoke  absolute 
confidence,  tender  self-surrender,  or  even  real 
affection.  Still  less  could  it  bring  those  storms 
of  the  senses  or  the  imagination  which  sometimes 
wear  the  mantle  of  love.  "  Neither  temperament 
nor  romance,"  Madame  du  Deffand  writes  of  her- 
self; while  the  President,  worn  before  his  time  by 
late  hours  and  high  living,  was  not  far  from  the 
period  of  life  when,  in  his  own  phrase,  "a  man  is 
not  wholly  sorry  if  he  happen  to  mistake  the  hour 
and  to  miss  an  assignation."  Thus  it  was  not  long 
before  the  lovers  became  a  pair  of  allies,  more 
really  a  couple  of  old  friends  united  by  custom  and 
the  power  of  habit,  not  even  taking  the  trouble  to 
prolong  a  mutually  meaningless  comedy.  "Your 
absence  is  delightful,"  she  writes.  He  answers  in 
the  same  vein,  "  I  regretted  you  the  more  since 
absence  might  credit  you  with  sentiments  that 


38  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

only  your  presence   disproves" — strange   passages 
between  strange  lovers ! 

This  period  of  her  life  saw  Madame  du  Deffand 
lay  the  foundations  of  her  future  salon.  Every 
summer  she  spent  several  months  at  Sceaux.  At 
its  celebrated  "court,"  among  the  friends  of  the 
Duchesse  du  Maine,  those  whom  Paris  then 
accounted  its  men  of  letters  and  women  of  wit, 
the  Marquise  finished  her  education,  and  formed 
her  literary  taste  at  the  feet  of  authors,  learned 
men,  and  the  philosophers  of  the  day.  Her  quick 
intelligence  seldom  failed  to  assimilate  whatever  she 
read  or  heard.  Later  in  the  year,  when  she  took 
up  her  winter  quarters — first  with  her  brother,  the 
canon  of  La  Sainte  Chapelle,  later  in  her  own 
house  in  the  Rue  de  Beaune,  the  new  friends 
gathered  round  her  table.  These  parties  were 
originally  of  no  great  size,  but  her  reputation  for 
wit  grew  fast,  as  her  epigrams  were  freely  repeated. 
A  little  feared,  and  much  courted  in  consequence, 
the  company  of  her  visitors  swelled  until  "the 
gradual  increase  of  her  reputation  caused  her  to 
find  her  quarters  inadequate."  The  opportune 
death  of  her  husband  about  this  time  largely 
increased  her  means,  and  made  possible  that  re- 
moval from  the  Rue  de  Beaune  to  the  Convent  of 
Saint  Joseph  which  was  to  renew  the  fame  of  a 
house  already  notable  as  the  residence  of  Madame 
de  Montespan.  I  must  shortly  return  to  the  sub- 
ject of  this  house,  for  it  was  the  home  of  Julie  de 
Lespinasse  during  ten  years,  and  the  cradle  of  her 
fame. 


THE    MARQUISE    REFORMS         39 

The  Marquise  du  Deffand  was  close  upon  her 
fiftieth  year  at  the  date  of  this  move,  April  1747. 
She  had  recovered  her  place  in  public  opinion, 
and  had  forsaken  gallantry  for  love,  finding  no 
great  profit  in  either.  The  time  seemed  ripe  for 
yet  a  third  essay,  in  which  she  should  confine 
herself  to  the  pleasures  of  friendship.  The  resolve 
was  no  sooner  taken  than  she  put  it  in  practice 
with  her  customary  decision  and  rapidity.  A 
complete  change  in  her  mode  of  life  announced 
it  to  the  world.  "  I  have  entirely  reformed 
myself,"  she  tells  Formont.  "  I  have  forsaken 
the  public  shows,  and  attend  High  Mass  in  my 
parish  church.  The  rouge-pot  and  my  President 
must  forego  the  honour  of  formal  renunciation." 
Henault,  as  suggested  in  these  words,  remained  a 
frequent  visitor  at  the  new  house,  but  any  privilege 
other  than  that  of  his  fellow-guests  is  lost  to  him. 
The  hour  of  adventures  has  struck.  All  friends 
are  equally  welcome,  and  husbandless  and  childless, 
without  an  obligation,  the  Marquise  du  Deffand 
knows  no  care  other  than  to  lay  up  for  herself  a 
pleasant  and  easy  old  age  in  the  bosom  of  many 
friendships.  Henceforth  her  personality  assumed 
the  guise  under  which  it  has  come  down  to 
posterity. 

The  scheme  was  cunningly  devised,  yet  it 
almost  suffered  shipwreck  on  the  rocks  of  unfore- 
seen disaster.  The  Marquise  had  but  newly 
"reformed"  when  she  received  the  first  hint  of 
impending  misfortune  in  a  threatened  failure  of 
sight,  surely  one  of  the  greatest  ills  to  which 


40  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

our  humanity  is  prone.  The  progress  of  the 
malady  filled  her  with  fears  and  trembling,  and 
she  fought  a  desperate  battle  with  this  unseizable 
spectre  of  sightless  old  age,  a  horror  which  seemed 
daily  nearer  and  more  menacing.  When  the  Pro- 
fession confessed  themselves  powerless,  she  called 
in  the  quacks  and  charlatans — a  numerous  class 
at  the  time.  Each  boasted  his  remedy  and 
promised  a  cure,  and  each  failed  in  turn.  But 
if  no  miracle  came,  the  Marquise  at  least  pro- 
longed the  period  of  her  hopes,  no  mean  benefit ; 
"and  when  she  had  vainly  tried  ,  all  their  reme- 
dies, it  was  easy  to  be  reconciled  to  what 
could  not  be  amended  and  had  become  a  normal 
condition." 

This  statement  of  Madame  de  Genlis  is,  doubt- 
less, too  highly  coloured.  If  Madame  du  Deffand 
became  finally  reconciled,  her  surrender  was  never 
absolute,  certainly  not  thus  rapid.  Her  letters  of 
the  period  may  ignore  the  haunting  fear,  but  they 
are  full  of  tremors  and  but  slightly  veiled  anguish. 
Four  years  of  fruitless  struggles  found  her,  in  1752, 
highly  discouraged  and  without  many  illusions  on 
the  score  of  her  fate.  The  painful  subject  has  now 
to  be  recognised.  Word  and  letter  take  her  friends 
into  confidence,  and  she  receives  their  comfort, 
little  as  we  can  conceive  that  it  justified  the  name. 
"  You  say  that  you  are  blind.  Do  you  not  see  that 
we,  you  and  I,  were  little  rebel  spirits,  and  are  now 
consigned  to  the  shades.  You  should  find  comfort 
in  the  thought  that  those  who  see  are  not,  by  that 
one  token,  luminous  !  "  The  honour  of  such  poor 


HER   FAILING   SIGHT  41 

stuff  falls  to  Montesquieu.  Voltaire  follows,  but  if 
he  provides  a  trifle  of  sympathy,  his  compassion  is 
still  of  little  more  account.  "  My  eyes  were  a  little 
moist  when  they  read  of  what  has  befallen  yours. 
Monsieur  de  Formont's  letter  had  made  me  believe 
you  between  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea,  not  in 
darkness.  But  1  pity  you  infinitely  if  you  have 
really  lost  the  use  of  them."  To  Formont,  how- 
ever, he  writes  in  pretty,  jocular  strain  of  the  death 
that  had  fallen  upon  those  eyes  which  once  claimed 
so  many  victims.  "  Why  must  we  sinners  surfer 
through  the  organs  wherewith  we  were  used  to 
sin  ?  And  what  is  this  rage  of  nature  to  spoil  her 
finest  works  ?  At  least,  Madame  du  Deffand  keeps 
her  spirit.  Her  eyes  were  never  finer ! " 

One  can  hardly  wonder  if  this  Job's  sympathy 
from  her  friends-in-name  drove  a  tortured  soul  to 
seek  for  other  refuge,  or  to  pursue  a  less  selfish 
devotion.  Deeper  motives  need  hardly  be  sought 
to  explain  the  resolution,  however  sudden,  which 
led  her  to  abandon  Paris,  home,  and  friends, 
and  at  least  for  a  time,  with  her  own  kindred  and 
in  the  midst  of  fields  and  deep  woods,  to  ensue 
some  rest  for  a  disquieted  spirit,  balm  for  her 
bruised  soul.  Possibly  there  was  the  additional 
hope  that  the  airs  of  home  might  renew  her  health 
and  the  vital  powers,  and  so  exercise  a  happy 
influence  on  the  sight.  Late  in  August,  at  all 
events,  the  master  of  Champrond  was  called  upon 
to  mask  whatever  surprise  accompanied  his  vision 
of  a  travelling  carriage  from  which  came  forth  the 
sister  who,  these  almost  forty  years,  seemed  to 


42  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

have  laid  aside  all  memory  of  a  road   leading  to 
the  ancient  home  of  their  race. 

The  attitude  of  the  Marquise  to  her  family 
clearly  displays  her  changeable  humour  and  con- 
tradictory nature.  Her  letters  to  friends  seldom 
mention  a  relation  otherwise  than  in  a  spirit  of 
indifference  little  removed  from  hostility.  "  I  have 
a  nephew  in  Paris,  the  son  of  my  eldest  brother, 
Monsieur  de  Vichy.  He  lives  with  my  brother 
the  treasurer,  and  I  seldom  set  eyes  on  one  or 
the  other."  And  again,  "  My  Vichy  nephews  are 
with  me.  They  are  just  now  in  the  next  room, 
and  I'm  singularly  anxious  to  be  rid  of  them." 
We  shall  shortly  notice  a  letter  to  the  Duchesse 
de  Luynes,  full  of  a  like  contemptuous  tone,  this 
time  for  the  writer's  brother  and  his  wife.  Letters 
from  the  Vichy  side  breathe  reciprocal  sentiments. 
My  sisters  d'Aulan  and  du  Deffand  are  "  a  couple 
of  Megaeras"  is  Gaspard's  crude  remark.  Other 
letters  have,  none  the  less,  recently  come  to  light, 
tender  phrases  in  which,  such  as  are  seldom  heard 
from  Madame  du  Deffand,  but  which  wear  every  ap- 
pearance of  sincerity,  must  lead  us  to  suppose  that 
she  cherished  a  larger  attachment  for  her  family  than 
it  was  her  cue  to  confess  before  her  Parisian  friends. 
"  Be  sure  to  tell  them,"  she  writes  to  the  Vichys' 
secretary,  Abbe  Denis,  "  that  I  wish  to  devote  my 
last  days  to  them.  I  would  fain  meet  the  end  thus, 
for  I  should  certainly  be  far  happier  in  their  midst 
than  among  people  for  not  one  of  whom  do  I  really 
care,  and  in  whose  company  I  find  no  interest." 
To  the  Marquis  de  Vichy  himself  she  writes,  under 


RELATIONS   WITH    HER   FAMILY     43 

a  later  date :  "If  only  my  age  allowed  of  such 
things,  I  should  not  hesitate  for  a  moment  about 
coming  to  find  you.  I  can  assure  you  that  my 
feelings  in  your  regard  are  rather  those  of  a  loving 
mother  than  of  the  simple  aunt  that  I  am."  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  confirms  the  reality  of 
these  sentiments.  "  She  is  tenderly  interested  in 
anything  that  concerns  you.  .  .  .  She  speaks  her 
mind  sincerely  and  freely,  because  she  considers 
you  just  the  people  to  profit  by  such  candour. 
You  must  not,  therefore,  be  either  remorseful  or 
disturbed,  for  you  are  more  than  pardoned — you 
are  her  beloved  ones." 

It  seems  tolerably  clear  that  Madame  du 
Deffand  arrived  at  Champrond  with  the  best  in- 
tentions towards  its  inmates,  and  that  she  began 
by  sparing  no  efforts  to  maintain  a  good  under- 
standing. "  The  whole  province,"  she  tells  Madame 
de  Luynes  shortly  after  her  departure  from  the 
Chateau,  "  will  bear  witness  to  my  intentions  in 
their  regard.  I  praised  everything,  adapted  my- 
self to  their  habits ;  far  from  causing  trouble  in 
the  house,  my  servants  did  far  more  for  them  than 
did  their  own.  Finally,  Madame,"  she  concludes, 
not  without  a  touch  of  malice,  "  what  can  better 
prove  to  you  how  welcome  they  made  me,  and 
how  they  counted  on  my  friendship,  than  the  readi- 
ness and  pleasure  with  which  they  accepted  the 
little  presents  that  I  was  moved  to  make  them  ? " 
Such  excellent  conduct  was  perhaps  partly  dictated 
by  diplomatic  considerations.  Nothing  but  spon- 
taneous attraction  drew  the  visitor's  attention,  from 


44  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

the  moment  of  her  arrival,  to  the  poor  and  lonely  . 
girl,  living  as  little  more  than  a  stranger  under  a 
roof  which  she  must  almost  have  counted  her  own, 
and  all  whose  pride  could  not  hide  her  sufferings. 
"I  soon  saw,"  writes  the  Marquise,  "that  she  did 
not  love  her  life  too  well,  and  often  had  tears  be- 
hind her  lashes."  The  restraint  with  which  Julie 
suffered  was  doubtless  the  first  cause  of  Madame 
du  Deffand's  attention,  later  of  her  sympathy. 
Frequent  talks  soon  led  to  confidences,  and  it  was 
not  long  before  the  elder  woman's  keen  eye  came 
to  recognise  one  of  the  finest  natures  which  it  had 
yet  been  her  fortune  to  discover. 

Julie's  personal  appearance  had  little  to  do  with 
her  singular  powers  of  attraction.  Her  best  friends 
are  quite  frank  on  this  point.  Thus  d'Alembert 
writes  to  her,  "  I  never  mention  your  face,  for  you 
set  no  store  by  it  yourself."  Guibert  is  even  more 
direct  in  his  L '  Eloge  d1  Eliza.  "Her  last  claim 
was  to  beauty,  yet  this  plainness  did  not  repel  at 
even  the  first  glance.  It  seemed  perfectly  natural 
at  a  second,  and  vanished  when  she  opened  her 
lips."  Guibert,  of  course,  did  not  know  her  until 
her  thirty- eighth  year.  She  was  then  sadly  dis- 
figured by  small-pox.  Madame  du  Deffand,  on  the 
contrary,  first  met  her  when  barely  twenty,  and  if 
her  features  were  irregular,  the  girl's  appearance 
was  then  sufficiently  pleasant.  The  little  head, 
well  set  on  a  fine  neck,  was  crowned  with  an 
abundance  of  brown  hair.  The  face  was  oval, 
and  the  nose  fine,  though  a  trifle  turned-up ;  the 
mouth  a  little  full,  but  frank.  Her  black  eyes  were 


JULIE    AT   TWENTY  45 

strangely  expressive,  with  an  air  of  deep  thought- 
fulness — "  her  mother's  look,  with  a  touch  of 
added  liveliness." 

Tall  and  slender,  yet  of  a  good  figure,  her  dis- 
tinction of  carriage  was  in  some  contrast  to  the 
simplicity  of  her  dress.  All  her  motions  were 
graceful.  She  walked  with  an  air.  But  the  point 
upon  which  all  contemporaries  insist  is  the  extra- 
ordinary interest  of  her  features — sensitive,  never 
at  rest,  reflecting  as  in  a  clear  glass  every  move- 
ment of  her  spirit,  all  the  sensations  of  her  mind. 
"I  have  seen,"  exclaims  Guibert,  "faces  moved  by 
passion,  pleasure,  high  spirits,  or  sorrow  ;  but  of  what 
a  thousand  shades  was  I  ignorant  until  we  met." 
Gay  or  serious,  ironical  or  passionate ;  now  ex- 
quisitely yielding,  a  moment  later  the  fragile  surface 
scarcely  veiling  the  latent  deeps  of  power  and 
energy  ;  ever  full  of  life  and  sympathy, — she  claimed 
the  attention  of  the  most  indifferent,  and  uncon- 
sciously became  the  focus  of  any  party,  the  single 
preoccupation  of  all  who  found  themselves  in  her 
company.  Guibert  may  be  quoted  again  :  "  I  have 
seen  her  electrify  apathy,  and  raise  a  moderate 
mind  to  her  own  level.  .  .  .  '  You  give  life  to 
marble,'  I  have  told  her,  '  and  matter  thinks  in 
your  hands.'" 

Doubtless,  this  power  over  other  minds  was  the 
fruit  of  her  own  intense  life.  At  the  age  when 
womanhood  has  not  yet  absorbed  the  child,  to 
which  life  is  still  unreal  and  love  unknown,  an 
almost  flame-like  purity  surrounds  a  girl,  and  instils 
"inexpressible  interest"  into  her  lightest  word. 


46  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

The  moment  is  all  her  care ;  she  is  interested  in 
nothing  by  halves.  The  modulations  of  her  voice 
half  betray  the  secrets  of  a  soul  which,  as  Julie  her- 
self bears  witness,  are  too  intense  and  too  delicate 
for  her  to  dare  entrust  them  to  the  treacherous  inter- 
pretation of  speech.  "  How  utterly  words  fail  to 
convey  what  one  really  feels !  The  brain  finds 
sounds,  but  the  soul  cries  out  for  a  new  language. 
Indeed,  but  I  feel  more  than  there  are  separate 
words  to  utter ! "  But  nature  is  just  in  her  com- 
pensations, and  if  one  of  the  secrets  of  a  girl's 
charm  at  this  age  is  the  gift  which  she  can  make 
of  her  soul,  the  way  to  her  heart  may  be  found  in 
the  same  direction.  Tenderness  alone  evokes  real 
confidence.  Sensitive  as  she  is  to  a  charming 
manner  or  seductive  wit,  she  responds  far  more 
truly  to  a  little  self-surrender,  trust,  genuine  affec- 
tion. This  is  the  real  key ;  without  it  the  finest 
qualities  fail  to  reach  her  true  self.  It  explains 
Julie's  later  criticism  of  Thomas.1  "He  is  the  most 
virtuous,  the  most  sensible,  even  the  most  eloquent 
of  men.  His  greatest  fault  is  that  he  is  incapable  of 
stupidity.  For  myself,  I  am  both  always  stupid 
and — Heaven  be  praised! — have  no  need  to  confess 
it ! "  The  delicacy  of  sensation  proper  to  this  age 
enabled  the  girl  to  perceive  the  real  worth  of  those 
who  lavish  protestations  of  friendship  and  offers 
of  help.  Her  standard  for  judging  men  is  their 
feeling  rather  than  conduct.  Once  more,  in  Julie's 
own  words,  "  I  estimate  intentions  as  others  value 
actions." 

1  Author  of  LEloge  des  Femmes. 


HER   CHARACTER  47 

Sensibility  of  this  kind,  amounting  often  to  a 
state  of  exaltation,  was  curiously  allied  with  quali- 
ties of  the  most  dissimilar  aspect.  After  Marmon- 
tel's  "  the  quickest  brain,  most  passionate  soul  and 
inflammable  imagination,  allied  since  Sappho  died," 
one  is  a  little  surprised  to  discover,  in  the  same 
person,  a  fund  of  reasonableness  and  sound  sense 
able  to  resist  the  impulses  of  this  ardent  heart 
in  all  but  its  most  crucial  motions.  The  grand 
originality  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  the 
quality  which  makes  her  a  unique  character,  is  pre- 
cisely this  astonishing  mixture  of  heat  with  self- 
containment,  passion  with  the  sense  of  proportion, 
blind  haste  and  prevision ;  of  a  soul  all  impulse 
with  a  reflective  mind. 

Finally,  precious  as  were  these  gifts,  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  was  also  mistress  of  that 
without  which  the  rest  would  have  lost  their  charm. 
She  was  perfectly  natural,  eminently  sincere.  I  do 
not  here  speak  of  that  truth  in  word,  that  in- 
stinctive feeling  for  right  which,  she  tells  us,  makes 
any  reticence  as  impossible  as  a  lie  where  one  for 
whom  she  cares  is  concerned.  This  is  that  rarer 
sincerity  born  of  true  harmony  between  the  soul 
and  the  visible  conduct  of  a  life.  "  Whether  it 
were  heart  or  brain  which  stirred  her,  gesture, 
features,  the  very  tones  of  her  voice  moved  in 
perfect  accord  with  her  words,"  is  the  testimony 
of  one  of  her  friends.  She  does  herself  equal 
justice  in  this  letter — no  one  has  ever  described 
herself  better  or  with  more  impartiality  than  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse — "You  know  a  woman  who 


48  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

has  never  in  her  life  been  granted  those  charms  of 
face,  or  the  graces,  which  please,  interest,  or  touch, 
and  yet  this  person  has  succeeded  better  and  won 
a  thousand  times  more  love  than  she  could  ever 
have  aspired  to.  And,  would  you  know  the  cause 
of  this,  it  is  just  that  she  always  went  down  to  the 
truth  of  things,  was  herself  true  in  all  things."  Or, 
again,  "  Tell  me  all  the  hard  things  you  think  of 
me,  and  I  can  assure  you  that  some  will  still  be  left 
for  me  to  say,  for  I  know  myself  pretty  well.  .  .  . 
I  seem  to  displease  myself  a  good  deal  more  than 
I  displease  others — a  proof  that  I  know  myself 
better  than  others  know  me." 

Such  a  medal  has  its  reverse  side,  and  these 
qualities  have  their  defects.  She  can  be  as  sud- 
denly fascinated  as  she  is  prone  to  unreasoning 
dislikes.  Extreme  sensibility  now  depresses,  now 
renders  her  susceptible,  for  her  imagination  riots 
in  exaggeration.  If  she  loves  with  all  her  heart, 
her  friends  find  that  much  is  required  of  them. 
Some  complain  that  her  affection  is  an  exacting 
master.  The  passion  with  which  she  enters  upon 
anything  disturbs  her  judgment,  and  leads  to  frank 
injustice  at  times.  There  are  moments  when  she 
can  seem  no  longer  mistress  of  herself,  witness 
the  confession,  "  My  soul  has  a  continual  fever, 
with  fiercer  hours  which  often  bring  me  to 
the  threshold  of  delirium."  These  dangerous 
possibilities,  from  which  she  was  after  all  the 
prime  sufferer,  showed  themselves  particularly  in 
later  years,  when  misfortune  and  sickness  had 
come  upon  her.  At  this  early  stage  in  life  they 


THE    MARQUISE    MEETS    JULIE     49 

were  present,  but  had  not  come  to  power.  Too 
early  trouble  had  matured  without  embittering  her 
character.  "  I  knew  sorrow  at  an  early  hour,  and 
it  has  this  of  gain — that  one  escapes  many  follies 
in  consequence.  I  was  formed  by  the  grand- 
master of  our  race,  misfortune." 

Somewhat  as  I  have  drawn  her,  Madame  du 
Deffand  doubtless  found  Julie  de  Lespinasse,  while 
the  couple  walked  and  talked  in  this  season  of 
autumn  under  the  leafy  canopy  of  the  drives  in 
the  park  at  Champrond.  Contact  with  this  young 
spirit,  this  warmly  responsive  and  ardent  soul, 
slowly  thawed  the  ice  of  that  habitual  scepticism 
which  chilled  even  the  most  real  of  the  old 
Marquise's  affections.  Her  interest  in  the  sad 
lot  of  an  orphan  was  fortified  by  her  admiration 
for  such  a  treasure  of  understanding.  Thus  she 
writes,  after  leaving  Champrond  :  "  You  have  lots 
of  wits  ;  you  are  alert  and  you  can  feel.  These 
qualities  will  keep  you  charming  just  so  long  as  you 
condescend  to  follow  your  nature  and  avoid  pre- 
tentiousness and  complexity."  She  adds  a  further 
exhortation.  Julie  is  carefully  to  guard  that  quality 
wherein  the  Marquise  finds  the  charm  and  very 
adornment  of  youth  —  her  spontaneity,  that  in- 
genuous simplicity,  that  transparency  of  the  soul, 
which  bring  it  to  pass  that  one  may  read  the 
happenings  within  her  as  through  a  sheet  of  pure 
glass. 

Doubtless  there  now  came  to  her  the  vague 
feeling  that  by  binding  to  her  destiny  this  young 
being  so  brimful  of  vitality  and  affection,  she 


50  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

should  find  the  one  cure  for  the  chronic  weari- 
ness that  devoured  her,  the  depression  against 
which  she  eternally  and  as  vainly  struggled,  like 
so  many  other  women  of  the  time.  This  depres- 
sion is  none  of  that  false  brood,  vulgar  and  to 
be  combated  by  obvious  means,  the  fruit  of 
sloth  and  the  want  of  occupation,  voluntary  or 
enforced,  of  the  body  or  the  soul,  but  the  pro- 
found weariness  that  is  born  of  an  empty  heart 
and  sore  despite,  the  "  ashes  on  the  tongue " 
which  follow  an  inordinate  pursuit  of  pleasure, 
the  disillusionment  of  an  existence  bereft  of  its 
last  ide^l,  without  belief  and  without  a  real  in- 
terest. A  lesser  disgust  may  find  expression  in 
yawns  and  complaints ;  this  brings  tears  and 
despair,  the  conviction,  wherewith  Madame  du 
Deffand  was  cursed,  that  life  is  capable  of  but 
one  real  trouble — "the  fact  of  existence  itself." 
Among  all  her  intelligent  friends,  not  the  wisest 
was  ever  able  to  comprehend  this  state  of  mind. 
Voltaire  himself,  receiving  the  confidence  of  her 
woes,  takes  up  his  pen  to  ease  them  in  this 
fashion :  "  Madame,  I  will  make  search  for  all 
that  can,  perhaps,  amuse  you,  for  to  be  amused 
is  the  end  of  our  every  aspiration.  .  .  .  To  be 
constantly  serious  with  oneself  is  out  of  all  belief. 
If  nature  had  not  made  us  a  trifle  frivolous,  we 
should  be  truly  unhappy.  The  one  reason  why 
most  of  us  have  not  long  since  hanged  ourselves 
is  that  we  are  thus  frivolous."  Her  friends  all 
speak  in  the  like  strain,  and  one  can  imagine 
her  ironical  smile  as  she  receives  consolations 


THEIR    DISSIMILAR   CHARACTERS      51 

of  which  she  writes  :  "  For  the  health  of  this  my 
soul,  pretty  infusions  of  lime-flowers ;  camomile 
and  white  syrup  for  the  body — truly  a  very  holy- 
water,  and  proof  against  the  devil's  best  tempta- 
tions." It  is  surely  hard  not  to  excuse  her  the 
chill  disdain  that  thus  judges  the  majority  of  these 
friends.  "  I  live  with  certain  amiable  persons, 
possessed  of  humane  and  compassionate  qualities. 
Thus  is  there  born  the  semblance  of  friendship, 
and  herewith  I  do  content  me." 

President  Henault,  years  afterwards,  writes  to 
Julie,  "In  every  respect  you  are  yourself,  and 
comparable  with  no  one  else."  This  dissimilarity 
from  the  type  of  her  times  assuredly  counted  for 
much  in  her  attraction  for  Madame  du  Deffand. 
Had  she  indeed  found  the  companion  of  her 
dreams,  the  woman  who  could  enter  into  her 
misery,  and  bring  new  warmth  to  her  heart  ? 
Would  not  this  young  person  infuse  into  her  life, 
so  empty,  useless,  and  lost  to  all  desires,  a  hope 
of  the  coming  years,  a  taste  of  that  draught  which 
woman  drinks  deep  when  children  are  born  unto 
her  ?  Thoughts  of  this  kind  indubitably  seem  to 
have  moved  in  Madame  du  Deffand's  brain,  to 
have  amounted  to  an  idea  of  adoption.  Circum- 
stances were  certainly  propitious.  We  know  that 
Julie  was  passing  through  a  direful  mental  struggle. 
She  confided  her  cares  to  the  Marquise.  "  She 
told  me  that  she  could  not  possibly  remain  with 
Monsieur  and  Madame  du  Vichy,  who  had  long 
treated  her  in  the  harshest  and  most  humiliating 
fashion.  Her  patience  was  exhausted."  More 


52  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

than  a  year  previously  she  had  told  Madame  de 
Vichy  of  her  wish  to  leave  Champrond,  and 
although  she  consented  to  postpone  the  breach 
for  a  few  months  out  of  deference  to  her  hostess, 
it  was  now  impossible  for  her  to  endure  any  more 
of  the  scenes  to  which  she  was  daily  forced  to 
submit.  Therefore,  concluded  the  girl,  it  was 
her  intention  to  seek  refuge  in  a  convent  at  Lyons, 
not  as  a  nun,  since  no  reflection  could  persuade 
her  of  a  call  to  that,  but  as  a  simple  boarder. 
Thus  she  would  find  her  independence,  and  yet 
enjoy  the  considerable  advantages  to  be  derived 
from  so  pious  an  abode.  Her  mother  had  left 
her  an  annuity  of  a  hundred  crowns.  If  this 
were  not  enough,  Camille  d'Albon  would  remedy 
the  deficiency.  Julie  had  no  doubt  of  his  readiness 
so  to  do. 

Madame  du  Deffand  asserts  that  she  at  first 
opposed  this  project,  to  which  her  brother  and 
sister-in-law  evinced  the  liveliest  objection.  Gas- 
pard,  indeed,  protested  that  it  was  "nothing  to 
him,"  but  that  his  wife  took  it  greatly  to  heart,  and 
he  desired  to  spare  her  the  pain  of  it.  Both  were 
certainly  afraid  of  the  talk  that  their  neighbours 
would  make  over  so  brusque  a  rupture.  The 
Marquise,  persuaded  to  act  as  their  ambassador  to 
Julie,  began  by  dwelling  on  the  monotony  of  convent 
life,  the  annoyance  that  she  must  incur  "  by  going  to 
live  in  a  town  where  certain  things  most  disagree- 
able to  herself  were  matters  of  common  notoriety," 
the  privations  to  be  undergone  if  Count  d'Albon 
refused  to  open  his  purse  for  her,  and  other 


JULIE    LEAVES   CHAMPROND       53 

arguments  of  the  same  kind.  All  this  eloquence 
was,  however,  rendered  nugatory  by  the  manner 
in  which  the  orator  concluded  her  discourse  with 
a  new  suggestion.  Why  should  Julie  bury  her- 
self at  Lyons  when  Paris  contained  the  Convent 
of  Saint  Joseph,  and  the  convent  held  ample  room 
for  two  ?  Two  lonely  women  might  do  worse 
than  enter  into  an  alliance  when  they  found  each 
other  as  sympathetic  as  in  the  present  case.  True, 
the  temptress  did  no  more  than  breathe  the  sug- 
gestion into  Julie's  ears  on  the  eve  of  her  departure, 
but  the  simple  words  shone  as  might  a  ray  of  sun- 
light in  a  starless  night.  "  It  seemed  to  me  that 
it  might  be  the  happiest  possible  solution  for  her." 
The  idea  could  not  be  carried  out  on  the  spot,  but 
they  would  presently  meet  again  at  Lyons,  and 
until  then  it  was  possible  to  correspond.  "  She 
begged  me  of  my  kindness  to  write  to  her,  and 
to  let  her  write  to  me.  I  was  glad  enough ! " 
Above  all,  the  pair  entered  into  a  solemn  com- 
pact of  silence. 

Towards  the  close  of  October,  Camille  d'Albon, 
unable  to  come  himself,  despatched  a  trusty  servant 
to  act  escort  to  his  sister  on  her  journey.  The 
hour  of  leaving  Champrond  had  struck.  The  part- 
ing provoked  more  emotions  than  need  have  been 
expected.  Monsieur  and  Madame  de  Vichy 
appeared  really  moved.  They  conjured  Julie 
"  not  to  leave  them  altogether,"  at  least  to  leave 
them  with  the  hope  that  she  would  pass  her 
summers  under  their  roof.  Julie  was  also  deeply 
moved.  Despite  her  injuries,  she  confessed  genuine 


54  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

affection  for  these  so  near  relatives  whose  life  she 
had  shared  for  four  years.  Later  letters  from  her 
pen  leave  no  doubt  of  the  reality  and  strength  of  a 
feeling  that  never  left  her.  The  children  loudly 
bewailed  their  comrade  and  second  mother ;  the 
servants  could  not  restrain  their  tears.  The  noise 
of  her  heavy  carriage,  as  it  rolled  from  the  gates, 
seemed  to  bear  away  the  good  cheer  of  the  house 
and  the  central  figure  of  its  hearth. 

Whatever  the  result  of  this  departure  upon  the 
rest  of  those  who  remained  behind,  one  sojourner 
at  Champrond  could  not  survive  it.  The  peaceful 
life  of  the  countryside  lost  all  its  charm  for  the 
Marquise  du  Deffand ;  a  family  existence  became 
intolerable.  D'Alembert's  letter  of  December  4th 
shows  this  clearly.  "Your  last  letter  clearly 
demonstrates  that  Champrond  has  been  no  cure. 
Your  soul  seems  sick  unto  death."  A  few  days 
later  he  varies  the  phrase.  "  Paris  bored  you,  and 
you  thought  to  find  yourself  happier  at  Champrond. 
You  went  there,  and  you  are  depressed  anew.  ..." 
Brief  as  was  the  interval  between  these  letters,  the 
latter  found  the  Marquise  already  moved  to  Macon, 
as  guest  of  the  Bishop,  de  Lort  de  Serignan  de 
Valras,  "a  rarely  good  friend  and  as  congenial  as 
man  can  be,  his  tantrums  notwithstanding,  and  they 
are  a  sad  interruption  to  talk.  He  swears  that  it  is 
I  who  am  carried  away,  but  what  does  it  matter 
when  one  concludes  by  being  as  good  friends  as 
ever !  "  From  Macon,  as  from  Champrond,  Madame 
du  Deffand  exchanged  continual  letters  with  Julie, 
and  the  famous  idea  was  frequently  in  evidence. 


HER    LIFE    AT    LYONS  55 

The  period  of  Julie's  stay  at  Lyons  is  one  of  the 
obscurest  phases  in  her  story.  No  research  has 
been  able  to  reveal  so  much  as  the  name  of  the 
convent  in  which  she  resided,  but  it  seems  a  lawful 
surmise  that,  at  first  at  all  events,  the  quiet  life 
pleased  her,  for  when  the  Marquise  came  to  visit 
her  in  the  spring,  and  renewed  her  offer  of  a  home 
in  Paris,  the  girl  hesitated  long  over  a  decision. 
This  occurred  early  in  April.  Madame  du  Deffand 
spent  ten  days  in  Lyons,  and  Julie  never  left  her 
side  during  that  time.  "  She  comes  to  me  at  eleven 
o'clock,  and  never  stirs  till  she  is  compelled  to 
return  to  the  convent  at  six."  Anxious  as  she  was 
to  win  the  girl's  acceptance,  the  Marquise  stated 
the  whole  case  loyally.  Julie  must  understand  the 
misconstructions  and  annoyances  almost  certain  to 
follow  her  appearance  in  Paris;  "the  impertinent 
gossip"  of  which  she  would  be  the  subject,  the 
many  little  petty  annoyances  inseparable  from  such 
a  transplantation  into  a  society  which  in  tone,  habits, 
and  the  personalities  to  be  encountered,  would  be 
so  utterly  new.  The  Marquise  dwelt  upon  these 
considerations,  but  she  also  detailed  the  various 
ways  in  which  she  hoped  to  soften  their  rigours 
for  her  friend.  Finally,  she  did  not  spare  her  criti- 
cism of  the  girl's  character.  Julie  required  too 
much  of  others,  lacked  self-control,  was  incorrigibly 
suspicious,  as  witness  her  more  than  distaste 
for  all  whose  conduct  appeared  to  her  artificial, 
even  no  more  than  adroit !  Julie  listened  duti- 
fully. The  lecture  evoked  a  species  of  disquiet 
in  her,  a  presentiment  which  moved  her  soul  to 


56  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

question  what  had  thus  far  been  the  supreme  attrac- 
tion of  the  scheme. 

Cardinal  de  Tencin,  quite  recently  invested  with 
the  Archbishopric  of  Lyons,  and  an  old  friend  of 
Madame  du  Deffand,  called  on  the  latter  during  the 
course  of  this  debate.  Interested  in  this  new 
dweller  within  his  diocese,  he  inquired  about  her. 
The  Marquise's  replies  increased  his  interest.  He 
promised  to  exercise  his  influence  on  behalf  of 
Julie,  who  tasted  the  first-fruits  of  such  exalted 
protection  in  the  matter  of  a  private  room  now 
put  at  her  disposal  by  the  authorities  at  the  con- 
vent. The  Cardinal  shortly  called  on  Madame  du 
Deffand  a  second  time,  and  at  once  returned  to  the 
subject  of  this  attractive  young  person.  "  He  said 
that  I  (the  Marquise)  ought  certainly  to  secure  her 
companionship,  for  she  would  be  both  useful  and 
necessary  in  the  unfortunate  circumstances  that 
threatened  me.  Moreover,  my  relatives  and  Mon- 
sieur d'Albon  ought  to  desire  the  same  arrange- 
ment, since  nothing  could  more  certainly  assure 
them  of  her  safety.  We  discussed  all  the  incon- 
veniences of  such  an  arrangement,  and  could  find 
none  which  was  not  both  easy  to  foresee  and  to 
avoid."  Thus  encouraged,  Madame  du  Deffand 
had  made  up  her  own  mind  when  she  left  Lyons 
about  April  I5th.  Julie  was  not  so  satisfied;  she 
demanded  time  for  further  consideration,  and  the 
Marquise  had  perforce  to  acquiesce. 

The  project  remained  thus  indefinite  for 
several  months,  the  girl  lying  hid  within  the 
walls  of  her  convent,  while  Madame  divided  her 


HER   FEAR   OF    PARIS  57 

time  between  Macon  and  Champrond,  each  proving 
an  equally  unsatisfactory  place  of  sojourn.  Her 
friends  urged  a  return  to  Paris,  and  spared  no 
efforts  to  paint  the  delights  awaiting  her  there. 
"  Why  on  earth  do  you  fear  to  return  home  ? 
With  your  reputation  and  income,  how  imagine 
that  you  can  lack  acquaintances  ?  I  do  not  use  the 
word  friends,  for  I  know  the  rarity  of  such  folk. 
But  I  say  acquaintances,  and  agreeable  acquaint- 
ances !  A  good  supper  buys  one  any  guests  you 
please,  and,  if  it  adds  sauce  to  the  spectacle,  men 
may  smile  at  their  guests — afterwards!"  D'Alem- 
bert  was  the  painter  of  this  genial  picture,  but  he 
painted  in  vain.  The  secret  torment  of  her  spiritual 
isolation,  enhanced  as  she  says  by  "the  eternal 
dungeon  "  of  a  blindness  now  almost  absolute,  filled 
her  with  inexpressible  terrors.  She  caught  at  any 
excuse  for  delaying  a  new  imprisonment  within  the 
cold  walls  of  her  house,  so  bare  of  any  comforting 
affection.  From  June  she  post-dates  the  return  to 
August,  and  only  the  chance  of  finding  d'Alem- 
bert  at  the  Chateau  du  Boulay,  the  house  of  their 
common  friend  Monsieur  du  Trousset  d'Hericourt, 
sends  her  back  to  the  capital  under  his  escort  in 
October.  She  had  not  been  there  many  weeks  be- 
fore a  letter  from  Julie  brought  her  dearest  hopes 
to  their  apparent  nadir. 

Bred  as  she  had  been  in  the  quiet  of  an  obscure 
countryside,  Julie's  fears  of  the  Parisian  whirlpool 
increased  daily.  She  hesitated  more  and  more  to 
take  the  final  plunge.  "The  grand  world,"  viewed 
from  the  convent,  seemed  a  place  of  singular  terrors 


58  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

in  which  she  would  find  herself  an  exile,  lost  to  all 
foothold,  even  more  alone  than  in  her  present 
position.  Each  prospect  owned  its  terrors,  but 
the  known  was  surely  a  lesser  evil  than  the  un- 
known. Prolonged  consideration  led  back  to  her 
first  idea — she  would  call  upon  Camille  d'Albon  to 
increase  her  annuity  sufficiently  to  enable  her  to 
remain  at  Lyons,  there  to  remain  lost  to  the  world 
in  a  quiet  yet  independent  corner  of  her  own.  If 
her  brother  failed  her,  but  only  so,  she  would 
accept  Madame  du  Deffand's  offer.  Great  as  was 
her  disappointment,  the  Marquise  replied  with  a 
fine  dignity  and  self-control.  "  I  am  sure,"  she 
wrote,  "that  Monsieur  d'Albon  will  agree  to 
furnish  you  with  what  you  require.  ...  So  my 
hopes  fade  into  the  distance!  But  if  he  fails  you, 
remember  that  you  are  still  free  to  take  me  at  my 
word,  and  I  sincerely  trust  that  you  will  then  de- 
cide to  accept  my  offer."  Julie  must  not  doubt  the 
permanence  of  her  good-will.  "To  be  frank  and 
express  one's  real  beliefs  is  surely  no  fault,  but 
rather  the  best  course  of  action."  "Far  from 
bearing  the  girl  a  grudge  she,  therefore,  applauds 
her  sincerity,"  and  much  as  she  fears  that  the 
stream  has  carried  her  hopes  away,  "she  will  not 
love  her  the  less  for  that."  "  Farewell,  my  queen," 
she  concludes  ;  "  you  can  show  our  friend  (Cardinal 
de  Tencin)  this  letter.  I  have  no  secrets  from  him 
in  respect  of  yourself." 

Having  thus  recovered  her  freedom,  Julie  no 
longer  hesitates  to  make  her  demands  upon  Count 
d'Albon.  She  did  this  frankly  enough,  giving  him 


HER   BROTHER'S   COUNSEL         59 

an  outline  of  the  argument  which  we  have  traced, 
and  concluding  with  an  exhortation  "to  give  me  an 
answer  to  the  point."  The  reply  came  quickly 
enough.  It  was  both  very  much  to  the  point  and 
negative  at  all  points,  for  while  the  young  Count 
was  completely  opposed  to  Paris  and  the  idea  of 
living  with  Madame  du  Deffand,  he  as  clearly  gave 
Julie  to  understand  that  neither  now  nor  hereafter 
must  she  count  on  any  addition  to  the  annuity  left 
her  by  her  mother.  Hard  as  this  last  may  seem, 
Camille's  attitude  is  explained  and  justified  by  his 
financial  position.  His  father  was  still  alive,  and 
what  small  income  he  inherited  direct  from  the 
Countess  d'Albon  had  already  been  seriously  cur- 
tailed by  a  series  of  unfortunate  speculations. 
Moreover  he  had,  in  1750,  married  a  young  lady 
of  small  fortune  and  mediocre  nobility  ;  a  marriage 
justified  more  by  considerations  of  the  heart  than  of 
the  brain.  A  son  had  already  arrived  to  increase 
his  obligations.  Four  other  children  presently 
followed.  "  I  will  show  you  exactly  how  I  stand," 
we  read  in  one  of  his  letters,  "  and  you  will  see  how 
impossible  it  is  for  me  to  give  you  any  financial 
help.  I  have  children  to  provide  for,  and  provision 
of  this  sort  is  not  found  by  the  roadside.  Placed 
as  I  am,  the  advancement  of  my  children  must  be 
secured  by  other  means  than  the  expenditure  of 
money."  These  are  good  reasons,  and  perhaps 
Julie  did  not  clearly  comprehend  how  true  they 
were,  for  she  was  deeply  hurt  and  irritated  both  by 
her  brother's  refusal  to  help  her,  and  the  manner  in 
which  it  was  made.  Her  intense  spirit,  carried 


60  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

away  by  a  too  lively  imagination,  saw  in  it  a  dis- 
avowal of  their  alliance,  his  denial  of  the  bond  of 
their  common  blood.  Disappointment  blotted  out 
her  many  vows  of  eternal  friendship  toward  the 
friend  of  her  youth,  and  filled  their  place  with  a  dull 
and  bitter  hostility  that  soon  extended  to  all  that 
side  of  the  family,  and  that  has  left  numerous 
traces  in  her  will  no  less  than  in  letters.  Even 
twenty  years  later  Abel  de  Vichy  was  to  read,  "  I 
told  myself  that  all  my  life  long  I  should  have 
reason  to  complain  of  all  who  bore  the  name  of 
d'Albon,  or  belonged  to  the  family  in  any  way. 
This,  I  was  sure,  was  my  destiny." 

The  result  of  Julie's  disappointment  was  imme- 
diately seen.  She  would  exchange  her  provincial 
existence  for  a  Parisian  life,  her  quiet  convent  room 
for  the  worldly  mansion  of  Saint  Joseph.  The 
Marquise  was,  of  course,  immensely  delighted,  and 
replied  forthwith  :  "I  trust,  my  queen,  that  you 
will  not  find  it  necessary  to  change  your  mind 
again.  No  more  fears,  I  pray  you  !  I  trust  that 
May  will  see  us  settled  in  mutual  content,  me  with 
you  and  you  with  me."  The  affair  was  by  no 
means  concluded,  however,  for  the  first  whisper 
of  Julie's  resolution  roused  both  families.  The 
Vichys  and  d'Albons  joined  in  a  universal  out- 
cry. Now  as  always,  they  are  afraid  lest  she  may 
be  scheming  to  efface  the  taint  upon  her  name,  and, 
in  the  words  of  the  Duchesse  de  Luynes,  "  they  fear 
that  Paris  may  give  her  the  counsel  and  means  to 
obtain  a  position."  Madame  du  Deffand's  pre- 
cautions inspire  them  with  no  more  trust  than 


THE  MARQUISE  CHANGES  FRONT     61 

Julie's  written  promises  to  "forget  who  she  is," 
and  to  be  no  party  to  "even  the  smallest  attempt." 
So  importunate  do  they  become,  indeed,  that  the 
Marquise  changes  front  in  her  replies,  and  bids 
them  rely  on  the  extremely  problematical  nature  of 
such  "attempt"  rather  than  on  Julie's  promises. 
"  I  am  not  sufficiently  foolish  to  suppose  that  any 
such  reasons  as  friendship,  gratitude,  or  fear,  would 
prevent  her  endeavouring  to  recover  her  status,  if 
the  prospect  seemed  at  all  hopeful.  But  since  there 
can  be  no  hope,  and  she  sees  this  as  clearly  as  any 
of  us,  I  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  she  will 
embark  upon  such  a  folly." 

Madame  du  Deffand,  one  cannot  but  observe, 
knew  little  of  her  friend's  proud  and  upright  nature 
when  she  wrote  thus.  Under  no  circumstances, 
not  even  when  her  life's  happiness  was  at  stake, 
could  Julie  be  capable  of  dealing  falsely  with  her 
plighted  word.  The  pride  of  this  passage,  written 
towards  the  close  of  her  life,  is  fully  justified. 
"  How  undeservedly  have  I  been  praised  for 
moderation,  nobility,  disinterestedness,  and  the 
pretended  sacrifices  made  by  me  to  my  mother's 
memory  and  the  house  of  d'Albon.  Heavens!  but 
I  deserve  none  of  your  compliments,  good  fools ! 
My  soul  was  not  designed  for  the  pettiness  which 
fills  your  own.  Made  wholly  for  the  joys  of  lov- 
ing and  being  loved,  I  have  never  needed  either 
strength  or  honesty  to  enable  me  to  bear  with 
poverty,  and  to  disdain  the  benefits  of  vanity." 

The  violence  with  which  the  two  families  op- 
posed the  scheme,  placed  Julie  and  the  Marquise 


62  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

in  a  sufficiently  delicate  position.  The  former 
especially,  unknown  and  unsupported  as  she  was, 
certainly  had  reason  to  doubt  the  welcome  which 
she  might  expect  from  Parisian  society  under  such 
conditions.  Madame  du  Deffand,  fully  alive  to  the 
point,  exercised  consummate  address  in  combating 
the  danger.  Her  friends  take  the  field  a  month 
before  Julie's  arrival :  first  Tencin,  a  favourite  at 
court,  and  feared  by  all  on  account  of  his  audacity 
and  power  for  intrigue  ;  then  Renault,  the  Queen's 
friend,  and  the  best  known  man  in  Paris.  The 
ground  was  scarcely  prepared  by  these  means, 
when  Julie's  protector  turned  directly  to  a  quarter 
support  from  which  alone  would  suffice  to  break 
down  all  resistance.  The  Duchesse  de  Luynes, 
always  an  indulgent  aunt  to  the  Marquise,  enjoyed 
a  recognised  authority  in  the  family  and  society 
alike,  thanks  to  her  rank,  character,  and  her  known 
intimacy  with  Marie  Leczinska.  To  gain  such 
an  ally  was  as  good  as  to  win  the  battle,  and 
Madame  du  Deffand  spared  no  diplomacy,  no  effort 
of  her  pen,  to  win  this  aunt  to  her  side. 

Nearly  all  the  facts  that  I  have  recounted  find 
place  in  the  incomparably  able  letter  pleading  this 
cause,  a  veritable  masterpiece  of  policy  and  in- 
sinuating eloquence,  careful  and  studied  throughout, 
and  packed  with  appeals  to  old  memories.  Mon- 
sieur and  Madame  de  Vichy  are  never  reproached 
or  made  the  objects  of  any  direct  accusation,  but  an 
inquisition  by  rule  would  be  a  thousand  times  less 
overwhelming  than  this  nicely  calculated  string  of 
suggestions  and  discreet  regrets. 


THE    DUCHESSE    DE    LUYNES      63 

Appeals  to  the  heart  of  the  Duchesse  recur 
continually.  "  I  am  a  blind  woman,  Madame.  I 
am  praised  for  my  courage.  But  although  I  shall 
gain  nothing  by  yielding  to  despair,  I  certainly  feel 
all  the  pains  of  my  situation,  and  nothing  can  be 
more  natural  than  to  try  and  lessen  them.  And 
what  better  help  can  I  afford  myself  than  by 
bringing  some  friend  into  my  house,  a  companion 
who  will  relieve  the  pangs  of  my  loneliness!  I 
have  always  feared  that ;  it  overwhelms  me  utterly 
now."  Such  is  an  exordium  taken  from  the  letter. 
The  peroration  is  no  less  pathetic :  "  I  am  not 
looking  for  a  servant.  My  need  is  for  a  real  com- 
panion, and  a  possible  companion  is  not  easy  to 
find,  as  you  know.  I  confess  that  I  shall  not  relish 
annoying  the  family.  ...  I  shall  vex  a  prejudice 
of  theirs,  and  obtain  a  happiness  which  is  essential 
to  me.  Really,  there  is  no  proportion  between  the 
two  things.  Madame,  I  have  opened  my  whole 
heart  to  you.  You  love  me,  and  I  am  unhappy ; 
but  your  compassion  is  no  less  signal  than  is  your 
righteousness." 

Madame  de  Luynes'  reply,  by  no  means  long 
delayed,  was  reserved  and  full  of  wise  counsel,  but 
might  none  the  less  be  read  as  a  species  of  assent. 
Madame  du  Deffand  chose  to  take  it  as  such. 
She  adroitly  overwhelmed  her  aunt  with  thanks, 
and  at  once  proceeded  to  action. 

The  Archbishop  of  Lyons  was  begged  to  super- 
vise Julie's  preparations  for  the  journey.  She 
herself  forthwith  prepared  Parisian  opinion,  ac- 
cording to  the  judicious  campaign  long  since 


64  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

prepared  in  her  own  mind.  "  I  shall  give  out 
.  .  .  that  you  are  a  young  provincial  lady  who 
desires  to  enter  a  convent,  and  that  I  have  offered 
you  shelter  until  your  choice  is  made.  ...  I  shall 
always  avoid  the  appearance  of  seeking  to  intro- 
duce you.  I  propose  to  raise  your  value,  and 
if  you  really  know  me  you  should  never  be  dis- 
quieted by  the  manner  in  which  I  shall  treat  your 
self-conceit.  .  .  .  The  world  must  know  your  worth 
and  qualities  first  of  all,  and  this  the  help  of  myself 
and  my  friends  will  easily  secure  for  you."  All 
Paris,  indeed,  was  shortly  aware  that  a  particularly 
interesting  young  woman  would  presently  become 
a  resident  at  Saint  Joseph's.  If  an  air  of  mystery 
clung  to  the  new-comer,  her  attractions  were  cer- 
tainly not  diminished  by  this. 

These  dispositions  made,  the  Marquise  in- 
formed Julie  of  the  result  of  her  efforts,  and  pressed 
her  to  set  out  forthwith.  "  I  have  just  received 
my  answer  from  Madame  de  Luynes,  and  have  no 
fault  to  find  with  it.  I  trust  that  I  shall  never 
have  reason  to  regret  my  efforts  on  your  behalf, 
and  that  you  would  never  have  decided  to  join  me 
unless  your  mind  were  fully  made  up.  ...  So  much 
I  had  to  say.  I  will  only  add,  that  your  coming, 
and  the  prospect  of  your  companionship,  are  an 
inexpressible  joy  to  me."  The  letter  ends  with 
these  lines,  which  surely  bear  the  stamp  of  real  feel- 
ing:  "Farewell,  my  queen.  Hasten  your  packing, 
and  come  to  be  the  joy  and  consolation  of  my  life. 
It  will  be  no  fault  of  mine  if  that  hope  does  not 
prove  reciprocal." 


JULIE    DECIDES   FOR   PARIS         65 

The  Attorney-General  of  Lyons  and  his  wife 
happened  to  be  journeying  to  Paris  at  this  time, 
and  at  the  instance  of  Cardinal  de  Tencin  under- 
took to  safe  -  conduct  their  interesting  fellow- 
traveller.  Thus,  one  day  in  the  latter  half  of  April 
1754,  the  Lyons  coach  drew  up  before  the  gate  of 
the  Convent  of  Saint  Joseph,  to  leave  there  a  girl 
of  about  twenty  years  of  age,  somewhat  provin- 
cial in  appearance,  a  trifle  nervous  and  frightened, 
but  a  girl  none  the  less  happy,  and  with  a  heart 
big  with  hope. 


CHAPTER   III 

The  Convent  of  Saint  Joseph— Intimate  life  of  the  Marquise  du  Deffand— 
Influence  of  the  new  life  on  Julie — Her  first  friends — The  Marechale  de 
Luxembourg — Preponderant  influence  of  Madame  du  Deffand  on  the 
intellectual  formation  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Similarity  in 
character  and  spirit — The  honeymoon  of  their  alliance — Good  feelings 
endangered  by  instinctive  coquetry  of  Julie — Her  first  conquests :  the 
Chevalier  d'Aydie  and  President  Henault — Her  first  romance  :  Viscount 
de  Taafe — Prudent  intervention  of  Madame  du  Deffand — Her  moderation 
throughout. 

THE  House  of  the  Daughters  of  Saint  Joseph  of 
Providence  filled  the  spacious  site  now  covered  by 
the  various  buildings  of  the  Ministry  for  War.  To 
the  left  of  the  Hotel  de  Brienne,  to-day  the  Minis- 
ter's official  residence,  stood  a  building  separated 
from  the  main  pile  by  a  little  court  opening  on 
Rue  Saint  Dominique.  Here,  apart  from  the  nuns' 
own  quarters,  a  certain  number  of  discreetly  elegant 
apartments  were  let  out  to  women  of  the  world — 
unmarried  ladies,  widows,  or  such  as  lived  apart 
from  their  husbands.  While  covered  by  the  mantle 
of  their  pious  neighbours,  these  tenants  were  in  all 
other  respects  free  to  live  as  they  might  desire. 
They  had  their  own  servants,  and  owed  no  obedience 
to  the  rules  of  the  convent. 

Madame  du  Deffand  lived  in  the  apartments 
formerly  occupied,  after  her  flight  from  Court,  by 
Madame  de  Montespan,  the  protectress  of  the 
house.  A  relic  of  her  tenancy  were  her  arms 
still  ornamenting  the  central  stone  of  the  great 

66 


THE   CONVENT  OF   SAINT  JOSEPH    67 

chimney.  The  quarters  were  bright  and  comfort- 
able, although  of  no  especial  size.  "  I  have  a  very 
pretty  and  exceedingly  convenient  apartment,"  the 
Marquise  writes  to  Voltaire.  Records  of  the  time 
give  an  inventory  of  the  drawing-room  and  its 
furnishing.  Deep  sofas  and  little  couches,  artfully 
disposed  between  small  tables  piled  high  with  books, 
formed  a  constant  invitation  to  familiar  discussion, 
and  clearly  displayed  the  tastes  of  their  owner. 

Larger  parties  met  in  this  room.  A  less  formal 
and  more  simple  apartment,  contiguous  to  the  larger 
piece,  was  the  scene  of  more  intimate  gatherings. 
At  the  corner  of  its  fireplace  stood  a  great  chair,  the 
Marquise's  famous  "  throne,"  the  high  back  of  which 
curved  forward  until  the  top  formed  a  veritable 
canopy  above  her  head.  Several  seats  and  a  book- 
case were  arranged  close  by,  while  a  cabinet  in  the 
angle  of  the  wall  displayed  some  fine  pieces  of  china. 
A  deep  recess  at  the  back  of  the  room  contained  a 
bed  draped  with  flowered  chintz,  and  a  little  dial  on 
the  wall  witnessed  the  passing  hours.  This  chamber 
was  really  Madame  du  Deffand's  bedroom.  Her 
apartment  was  completed  by  an  antechamber, 
dining-room,  a  small  room  for  Mademoiselle 
Devreux — a  devoted  body -servant  of  the  Mar- 
quise, who  was  little  less  than  her  personal  friend — 
and  another  chamber  for  Wiart,  factotum,  butler, 
secretary,  and  occasional  reader.  This  famous 
lodging  Madame  du  Deffand,  in  her  own  words, 
"never  left  except  to  sup  out."  Julie  at  first 
occupied  a  room  within  the  convent  proper,  but 
not  many  months  elapsed  before  her  protectress 


68  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

provided  the  girl  with  another  apartment,  less 
spacious  than  her  own,  but  in  the  same  building, 
and  on  the  next  story. 

The  mistress  of  the  scene  is  described  by 
Madame  de  Genlis  as  "a  little  woman,  thin,  pale, 
and  white-haired."  She  adds,  that  her  head  seemed 
out  of  proportion  large  for  the  body  beneath,  and 
preserved  few  traces  of  its  earlier  beauty.  Madame 
de  Luynes  records  that  "those  who  knew  her  in 
her  youth  remember  that  she  possessed  the  most 
beautiful  complexion  imaginable.  Her  presence 
was  fine,  and  the  expression  of  her  mobile  features 
highly  agreeable.  Her  face  was  wont  to  seem 
singularly  animated  and  intellectual,  with  beautiful 
eyes,  keen  and  piercing  as  a  bird's.  The  attrac- 
tiveness of  this  face  caused  one  to  overlook  the 
faults  in  her  hands  and  figure,  and  the  quality  of 
her  conversation  nearly  hid  her  unfortunate  trick 
of  talking  through  her  nose."  At  the  time  of 
Madame  de  Genlis'  description  the  Marquise's 
face  had  come  to  wear  an  expression  of  sadness, 
occasionally  of  disillusion  and  preoccupation  ;  but 
give  her  cause  to  speak  or  listen,  and  the  cold 
features  light  up,  a  sprite  of  irony  and  wit  seems 
to  fill  their  hollows,  and  the  eyes,  once  so  bright 
but  now  for  ever  dulled,  acquire  light  from  the  in- 
ward fires  of  the  mind  that  really  gives  the  illusion 
of  restored  sight.  No  one,  indeed,  ever  fashioned 
herself  a  more  clever  substitute  for  so  priceless  a 
loss.  By  the  aid  of  a  machine,  her  own  invention, 
the  Marquise  could  write  rapidly  and  clearly.  Her 
active  mind  acquired  a  species  of  second  sight  that 


MADAME    DU    DEFFAND  69 

enabled  her  to  imagine  persons  and  things,  and 
describe  them  almost  to  the  life.  Madame  Necker 
records,  "  She  is  blind  in  a  way  which  scarcely  lets 
us  perceive  it,  and  almost  escapes  her  own  notice." 
"The  tones  of  a  voice,"  adds  Henault,  "seem  to 
provide  her  with  an  image  of  the  thing,  and  she 
is  as  quick  in  seizing  a  point  as  if  she  possessed 
perfect  sight.  One  might  almost  say  that  her 
sometime  sight  was  an  additional  and  needless 
sense." 

The  one  great  change  in  Madame  du  Deffand 
consequent  upon  her  blindness  was  the  inability  to 
endure  even  momentary  solitude.  "  I  should  vastly 
prefer  the  company  of  the  sacristan  of  the  Minims 
to  passing  a  single  evening  alone,"  she  avows. 
Her  entire  day,  or  rather  night,  is  taken  up  with 
conversation,  dictation,  or  listening  to  her  reader. 
At  such  times  she  sits  in  an  armchair  or  the 
"throne,"  upon  her  knees  two  Angora  cats  with 
enormous  ribboned  collars  ;  animals  presently  re- 
placed by  Tonton,  most  ill-conditioned  of  pet  dogs, 
"her  adoration  of  which  increases  with  the  number 
of  persons  bitten  by  him."  The  evil  nature  of  the 
animal  led  to  Walpole's  later  advice  that  he  should 
be  consigned  to  the  Bastille  daily  at  5  p.m.,  under 
sure  guard.  On  another  occasion  Walpole  relates 
how  "  Tonton  flew  at  Lady  Barrymore,  and  I 
certainly  thought  that  she  would  lose  her  eyes. 
However,  he  was  satisfied  with  biting  her  finger. 
She  was  much  upset,  and  wept  copiously."  Madame 
du  Deffand,  far  too  clear-sighted  not  to  see  every- 
thing correctly,  knowing  that  she  had  let  Tonton  off 


70  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

far  too  lightly,  proceeded  to  relate  a  story  of  a  dog 
which  had  taken  a  mouthful  out  of  a  caller's  leg. 
Its  tender-hearted  mistress,  sadly  distressed,  cried 
out,  "  Heaven  send  that  the  poor  animal  does  not 
suffer  from  his  meal ! " 

News  of  the  outer  world  and  the  conversation 
of  her  friends  are  the  Marquise's  sole  distractions. 
"  I  never  leave  my  seat,  and  I  never  pay  a  visit." 
Occupations  other  than  mental  she  has  none,  and 
this  perverted  existence  is  seldom  lived  by  daylight ; 
a  fact  which  surely  places  her  in  an  age  "when 
women  sit  so  late  that  they  are  called  lampes"  an 
age  in  which  the  author  of  a  fashionable  novel 
writes  of  his  heroine,  "  She  could  suffer  almost  any 
disappointment  rather  than  the  supreme  one  of 
going  to  bed."  The  Marquise's  day  was  never 
properly  begun  until  the  hours  when  nature  counsels 
rest.  Six  o'clock  was  the  earliest  time  at  which  she 
rose,  and  from  then  until  far  into  the  morning  she 
received  the  long  array  of  her  guests.  When  by 
chance  she  sups  abroad,  any  excuse  is  good  enough 
to  delay  the  hour  of  return.  From  the  Opera  she 
proceeds  to  visit  the  Duchesse  de  la  Valliere,  the 
Marechale  de  Luxembourg,  President  Henault. 
But  this  is  not  enough.  At  2  a.m.  the  entire  party 
is  to  drive  round  the  town,  because,  she  says,  "  it  is 
far  too  early  to  go  to  bed."  Horace  Wai  pole  loudly 
complains  of  these  nocturnal  habits  when  he  chances 
to  share  them,  notwithstanding  that  he  finds  it  diffi- 
cult sufficiently  to  admire  "  the  herculean  frailty " 
of  his  septuagenarian  friend. 

Madame  du  Deffand's  supreme  hour  was  this 


LIFE    AT   SAINT   JOSEPH'S          71 

of  supper.  It  is  her  chief  joy  and  the  affair  of 
the  day,  "one  of  the  four  ends  of  creation," 
she  avers,  and  carelessly  adds,  "  but  I  have  for- 
gotten the  other  three."  Sometimes  she  sups 
abroad  ;  more  usually,  however,  it  is  at  home 
with  three  or  four  friends,  nearly  always  the  same. 
But  once  a  week,  on  Sunday  at  first,  afterwards 
on  Saturdays,  a  large  company  sits  down  with 
her,  and  "neither  fight  nor  avoid  each  other," 
diverse  and  often  antagonistic  as  are  their  per- 
sonalities. The  sole  tie  between  them  is  that  all 
are  brilliant  talkers.  Never  is  there  such  talk  as 
round  her  table.  It  is  the  sufficient  luxury  for 
her  guests,  and  they  are  perfectly  aware  that  the 
rest  of  the  menu  will  be  simple  enough.  The 
sauces  of  one  of  her  cooks,  long  notorious  for  his 
lack  of  skill,  were  a  constant  insult  to  President 
Henault's  delicate  palate.  "  Nothing  but  the  in- 
tention distinguishes  such  a  fellow  from  a  Brin- 
villiers,"  he  writes. 

The  transition  from  the  confined  life  of  Cham- 
prond  and  the  convent  to  the  sort  of  existence 
just  outlined  must  have  proved  too  surprising  to 
Julie.  Wonder,  indeed,  seems  to  sum  up  her 
first  impressions.  Looking  back  afterwards,  she 
writes,  "  How  I  hate  my  inability  to  care  for  any- 
thing but  the  best,  and  how  difficult  I  am  to 
please  !  But  am  I  at  fault,  educated  as  I  have 
been  ?  Madame  du  Deffand — I  must  name  her 
my  mistress  in  wit ! — President  Henault,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Toulouse,  the  Archbishop  of  Aix,  Mon- 
sieur Turgot,  Monsieur  d'Alembert,  the  Abbe  de 


72  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Boismont,  Monsieur  de  Mora — these  taught  me  to 
think  and  to  talk,  these  condescended  to  find  me 
of  some  account ! "  Many  of  these  personages 
will  recur  in  these  pages.  A  biographer  must 
supplement  the  list  with  certain  names  omitted 
here,  but  possessed  of  a  right  to  inclusion,  since 
those  who  bore  them  were  among  the  first  to 
welcome  Julie  in  the  salon  of  Saint  Joseph,  and 
served  her  as  guides  on  the  first  stages  of  a  path 
bestrewn  with  pitfalls.  The  Marquis  d'Usse  may 
head  the  list.  A  grandson  of  Vauban,  and  thus 
a  relative  of  the  Vichys,  this  strange  and  absent- 
minded  old  man  was  certainly  a  trifle  crazed.  His 
manners  were  original  and  his  conversation  erratic, 
and  Henault  complains  that  "  his  letters  are  as  full 
of  erasures  as  his  talk  is  of  parentheses."  None 
the  less,  he  owned  a  charming  wit,  and  was  full 
of  interests  entirely  estimable  and  good.  "  All 
the  world  loves  him,  some  by  natural  taste,  some 
because  it  is  the  correct  thing !  Happy  the  man 
born  good  enough  to  truly  appreciate  him ! "  As 
an  habitual  visitor  at  Saint  Joseph's,  the  Marquis 
was  not  long  in  discovering  an  old  friend  in  his 
hostess's  youthful  guest.  He  had  met  her  when 
visiting  Champrond  some  years  before,  and  now 
conceived  for  her  a  devoted  affection  that  never 
afterwards  failed. 

The  Chevalier  d' Aydie  may  be  as  highly  praised. 
At  the  house  of  the  Marquise,  but  thirty-four  years 
earlier,  he  had  met  the  exquisite  Ai'sse",  the  memory 
of  whom  is  inextricably  interwoven  with  his  own. 
Now  in  the  sixties,  but  still  possessed  of  the  old 


JULIE'S    NEW   FRIENDS  73 

youthful  spirit  and  ardent  heart,  he  was  a  constant 
member  of  Madame  du  Deffand's  salon,  where  his 
often  hasty  but  always  generous  tongue,  and  the 
passionate  speech  which  was  but  a  reflection  of  his 
deep  feeling,  were  much  appreciated.  "  He  is  all 
for  the  first  thought,"  writes  his  hostess.  "  Monsieur 
de  Fontenelles  is  credited  with  a  second  brain 
in  the  place  of  a  heart.  The  Chevalier  might  be 
credited  with  a  second  heart.  .  .  .  Cross  but 
never  grumbling,  misanthropical  but  never  bitter, 
always  true  and  natural  in  all  his  changes  of  mood, 
his  very  faults  please,  and  to  find  him  less  im- 
perfect would  be  a  real  disappointment."  The 
Chevalier  was  sixty-four  when  he  met  Julie,  and 
he  at  once  found  her  his  second  Aisse.  One  of 
the  first  to  surrender  to  her  charm,  the  discreet 
emotion  in  his  old  heart  is  echoed  by  the  tenderly 
gentle  tones  of  certain  passages  in  letters  to  the 
Marquise.  "  Heaven  owed  you  the  favour  which 
is  bestowed  on  you  in  the  care  of  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse.  In  her  you  find  your  lost  sight.  Far 
greater  boon,  she  evokes  once  more  the  goodness 
and  affection  proper  to  your  nature.  I  congratulate 
myself  on  my  early  appreciation  of  her,  and  I  beg  of 
you  to  keep  me  some  share  in  her  good  opinions." 

Less  devoted  perhaps,  but  no  whit  less  useful, 
was  another  friend  whom  we  see  among  the  band 
of  Julie's  first  acquaintance.  As  a  peerless  coun- 
sellor in  things  worldly,  a  guide  second  to  none  in 
the  complicated  labyrinth,  full  of  snares  and  pit- 
falls, then  called  a  salon,  Mile,  de  Lespinasse  could 
have  fallen  into  no  better  hands  than  those  of  the 


74  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Marechale  de  Luxembourg,  the  woman  to  whom 
her  contemporaries  accorded  the  sceptre  of  fashion 
and  the  throne  of  good  taste.  Notwithstanding  a 
youth  so  light  that  it  scandalised  even  the  Regent's 
court,  a  mixture  of  haughtiness,  happy  audacity,  and 
diplomacy  not  only  enabled  her  to  live  down  the 
past,  but  established  her  as  arbiter  without  appeal  on 
all  questions  touching  the  amenities,  social  decorum, 
and  good  taste.  The  Due  de  L6vis  calls  "her 
empire  over  the  youth  of  both  sexes  absolute. 
Her  house  preserved  the  old  tradition  of  high 
and  easy  breeding."  She  was  only  passably  edu- 
cated, but  possessed  an  infallible  instinct  and 
delicate  taste,  rarer  and  more  precious  than  all 
the  wisdom  of  this  world,  "  perceptions  to  make 
men  tremble,"  and  was  always  able  to  characterise 
any  lapse  by  just  that  stinging  word  which  was 
sure  to  go  the  round  of  Paris  next  day.  Yet  the 
Marechale  was  no  more  feared  for  her  harshness 
than  she  was  sought  for  her  charm.  Paris  owned 
no  more  pitilessly  sarcastic  tongue  or  more  seduc- 
tive attractions.  "  Her  flattery,"  writes  the  same 
witness,  "is  the  more  effective  because  so  simple. 
Her  praises  seem  to  escape  her  unconsciously. 
You  imagine  that  she  is  kind  because  her  heart 
is  bursting  with  tenderness." 

Madame  de  Luxembourg's  attitude  towards 
Julie  was  of  this  latter  kind.  She  was  a  friend  of 
Madame  du  Deffand's  childhood.  They  had  run 
almost  identical  courses,  from  gallantry  to  love,  and 
from  love  to  the  intellectual  life.  Few  days  passed 
in  which  the  Marechale  did  not  call  at  Saint 


HER   SOCIAL   SUCCESS  75 

Joseph's.  For  her  sake,  almost  alone,  the  Mar- 
quise abandoned  her  regular  habits,  and  was  per- 
suaded, in  the  season  of  long  days,  to  visit  her 
friends  at  the  Chateau  de  Montmorency,  a  luxurious 
abode  of  which  nothing  now  remains.  Julie  was 
invited  to  share  the  first  of  these  visits  after  her 
arrival,  a  rare  and  envied  privilege.  "  This  is  a 
great  business  to  your  aunt,"  she  writes  to  Abel  de 
Vichy,  "  but  she  has  been  so  pressed  that  it  was 
impossible  to  refuse.  For  the  matter  of  that,  she 
need  not  alter  her  habits  a  bit,  for  Monsieur 
and  Madame  de  Luxembourg  overwhelm  us  with 
attentions,  and  their  guests  are  all  our  most  fre- 
quent companions  at  home — the  President,  Madame 
de  Mirepoix  and  Madame  de  Boufflers,  Monsieur  de 
Pont  de  Veyle,  and  the  rest."  Not  long  afterwards 
Julie  was  again  bidden  to  the  Chateau,  this  time 
alone,  and  treated  like  a  very  daughter  of  the  house. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  over-estimate  the  influ- 
ence of  such  intercourse  in  forming  the  character 
of  a  young  girl  fresh  from  the  depths  of  the  pro- 
vince. Her  quick  wits,  ready  perception,  and  the 
power  of  "  seeing  at  a  glance  "  and  "  comprehend- 
ing the  half-word,"  so  envied  by  her  friends,  made 
it  certain  that  she  would  miss  no  opportunities. 
Her  manners  and  taste  matured  at  the  same  time, 
and  her  perception  ripened  until  it  accepted  nothing 
short  of  the  best  and  the  finest  of  its  kind.  The 
critical  precepts  of  the  Marechale  perhaps  influ- 
enced her  too  deeply.  She  had  not  been  long  at 
Saint  Joseph's  before  friends  were  to  reproach  her 
with  undue  exclusiveness,  and  a  disproportionate 


;6  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

insistence  on  conformity  to  the  conventions.  "  From 
the  first,"  writes  d' Alembert,  "  you  were  as  much  at 
your  ease,  as  completely  at  home  in  the  most  bril- 
liant and  critical  society,  as  though  you  had  been 
born  to  such  surroundings.  You  felt  their  ways 
before  you  knew  them,  and  thus  showed  yourself 
possessed  of  a  nicety  and  refinement  of  tact  that 
are  rare  indeed.  In  a  word,  you  seemed  to  guess 
the  language  of  what  are  called  the  best  circles.  ..." 
But  he  adds  only  a  few  lines  later,  "Your  con- 
sciousness of  this — may  I  say,  your  self-consciousness 
of  a  somewhat  extraordinary  gift? — perhaps  leads 
you  into  the  fault  of  attaching  too  much  import- 
ance to  the  like  in  other  people.  Nothing  less  than 
the  most  genuine  qualities  obtains  forgiveness  from 
those  who  have  none,  but  on  this  really  minor 
point  you  have  always  shown  yourself  pitiless  to  a 
degree."  Perhaps  no  better  summary  of  Mademoi- 
selle de  Lespinasse's  virtues  and  failings  at  this 
time  can  be  given  than  this  rhymed  portrait  by  a 
member  of  the  salon  of  Saint  Joseph's  : — 

"  Your  judgment  is  faultless,  my  dear ! 
Your  manners  perfection,  we  hear ! 
You  are  witty  and  joyful, 
Polite,  and  all  grace,  but 
Your  temper  unequal 
A  friend  may  at  times  cut. 

"  Your  soul,  full  of  motions, 
Aye  varies  its  notions ; — 
At  nothing,  with  wrath  you  are  mad ! 
If,  next  moment,  you're  charming 
Again,  it's  alarming, — 
This  temple  that  wobbles — good — bad  ! 


JULIE    AND   THE    MARQUISE        77 

"  This  portrait  to  complete 
Here,  shortly,  I'll  repeat, 
Good  grammar  you  love  overmuch. 
You  discuss  it,  dear  Lady  ! 
Leave  that  to  O'Grady, 
Content  that  our  hearts  you  can  touch." 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  certainly  profited 
from  her  intercourse  with  the  persons  among  whom 
she  was  thrown,  but  it  is  possible  to  remember  this 
and  yet  allow  that  the  grand  influence  upon  her 
intellectual  development  was  exercised  by  Madame 
du  Deffand.  Sincerity  and  common  sense  were  at 
once  her  own  chief  virtues  and  those  upon  which 
she  set  most  store  in  others.  Her  own  character 
was  eminently  natural,  and  she  aspired  to  a  simple 
truth  in  all  things.  She  required  the  same  quali- 
ties from  Julie.  "Is  it  not  intolerable,"  she  fre- 
quently exclaims,  "that  truth  is  the  one  thing  that 
we  cannot  hear  !  "  The  least  "mannerism,  the  most 
innocuous  trick,  annoyed  her  to  the  point  of 
exasperation. 

"  She  simply  cannot  endure  the  least  artifici- 
ality, no  matter  of  what  kind,"  writes  the  girl  in 
her  severe  portrait  of  the  Marquise.  "  The  viva- 
ciousness  of  her  spirit  is  equalled  only  by  her  sim- 
plicity. A  jest  or  a  witticism  leaves  her  lips  as 
though  it  fell  from  them  without  her  intent  or  even 
knowledge.  Her  most  amusing  hits  are  never 
underlined  or  emphasised  by  so  much  as  a  tone,  so 
that  it  is  only  later,  and  on  reflection,  that  one  dis- 
covers their  quality.  Her  professed  horror  of 
intensity  or  declamation,  and  what  she  calls  '  high 


78  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

falutin,'  is  carried  to  the  extent  of  putting  a  tabu 
on  all  discussions  of  '  lofty  themes '  in  her  presence, 
and  her  detractors  charge  her  with  'hating  elo- 
quence and  the  finer  sentiments.' "  She  certainly 
evinced  little  taste  for  philosophical  discussion.  On 
leaving  a  supper  at  Necker's  house,  where  conver- 
sation had  taken  a  turn  in  this  direction,  she  wrote 
to  Barthelemy,  "  I  could  not  follow  the  reasoning, 
but  the  brawling  was  intolerable."  Superlatives,  a 
disease  of  the  age,  were  her  pet  detestation,  and 
those  who  laid  down  the  law,  and  would  hear  no 
reason,  were  unsparingly  snubbed.  "  I  make  short 
work  with  people,"  she  tartly  tells  one  of  them,  "  since 
I  learned  that  the  world  can  be  divided  between 
the  trumpers,  the  trumped,  and  the  trumpeters."1 

To  her  almost  perfect  sense  of  form  and  ex- 
pression, Madame  du  Deffand  added  excellent 
judgment  and  much  acuteness.  "  Your  remarks 
on  common  sense  are  quite  charming,"  she  says 
to  Walpole.  "  No  matter  what  may  be  a  man's 
intellectual  capacity,  it  soon  becomes  wearisome 
and  a  bore  without  this  for  foundation."  The 
Marquise  has  a  right  to  speak  thus,  for  a  clearer 
intelligence  or  more  precise  reason  would  be  hard 
to  find,  so  long  as  she  is  not  excited.  Absolute 
as  is  her  passion,  not  to  say  intensity,  where  the 
feelings  are  concerned,  she  is  as  completely  mistress 
of  herself  in  the  domain  of  opinions  and  ideas.  An 
objection  convinces  her  if  properly  presented,  and 
no  opponent  can  complain  that  she  refuses  to  yield 

1  "  Les  trompeurs,  les  trompe"s  et  les  trompettes,"  a  play  on  the 
words  incapable  of  an  absolute  rendering  into  English. —  Translator, 


THEIR    PERSONAL   RESEMBLANCE     79 

to  argument.  Madame  de  Genlis  wrongly  accuses 
her  of  laziness  and  want  of  conviction,  but  the  real 
explanation  of  this  is  that  she  is  always  a  prey  to 
self-doubt,  and  so  constitutionally  sceptical  that  she 
is  never  certain  whether  she  is  right  or  no.  Such 
an  attitude,  even  if  tinged  with  irony,  invests  her 
conversation  with  all  the  charm  of  sweetness  and 
goodwill. 

A  taste  for  sincerity,  simplicity,  restraint  in 
speech,  the  sense  of  proportion,  and  a  certain 
eclecticism  in  ideas,  are  as  characteristic  of  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  as  of  her  friend  and  patron. 
The  analogy  is  clear  in  the  main  ;  it  is  even  more 
striking  when  we  pass  to  details.  Both  have  similar 
tastes  in  literature  and  music — a  passion  for  the 
classics,  and  a  mistrust  of  all  that  is  new.  A 
feeling  for  nature  is  wanting  in  both.  A  passion 
for  analysing  the  human  mind,  and  a  high  apprecia- 
tion of  the  masterpieces  of  thought,  obscure  their 
perception  of  the  beauty  of  life's  pageant  and  the 
magic  of  colour  and  form.  As  Renault  once  wrote 
to  the  Marquise  in  earlier  days,  "  You  call  a 
moonlit  night  romantic,  the  thought  of  the  places 
where  one  met  a  dear  friend,  a  splendid  day — 
anything,  in  fact,  of  which  the  poets  have  used  the 
word.  I  did  not  find  it  a  cause  for  mirth.  ...  So 
be  it,  then !  I  ask  your  pardon  for  all  the  streams 
passed  heretofore  and  hereafter,  for  the  birds  their 
brothers  and  their  cousins  the  elm-trees.  Behold 
me  cured !  You  will  find  my  letters  the  more 
pleasant."  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  acknow- 
ledges the  like  failure  in  herself  when  she  makes 


8o  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

this  confession  towards  the  close  of  her  life.  "  I 
have  always  been  on  the  move,  been  everywhere, 
seen  everything,  thought  of  one  thing  only !  A 
sick  soul  sees  nature  under  one  aspect  only.  The 
world  wears  crape  to  its  eyes ! "  This,  also,  is  her 
appreciation  of  her  friend  Roucher's  poem,  "  The 
Months."  "His  talent  is  wholly  admirable,  but 
how  he  bores  one  with  his  use  of  it !  Diamonds, 
gold,  the  rainbow,  these  and  their  like  never  stir  my 
soul.  A  word  of  what  I  like,  its  slumbers  even, 
move  that  part  of  me  which  lives  and  breathes 
more  than  all  these  riches."  Madame  du  Deffand's 
verdict  on  her  friend  the  Marquis  de  Saint 
Lambert's  poem,  "The  Seasons,"  is  an  almost 
literal  replica  of  this.  "  There's  a  trifle  too  much 
of  purple  and  azure,  gold,  pampas,  and  '  dusky 
boscage.'  .  I  care  little  for  descriptions.  Paint  the 
passions  and  please  me.  I  like  the  inanimate 
world  best  when  it  is  on  the  farther  side  of  my 
door." 

These  are  no  chance  coincidences,  for  the 
similarity  is  unquestionable.  It  is  the  more  deep 
and  more  easily  developed,  since  the  two  women 
are  partakers  by  birth  in  the  faults  and  failures 
of  a  common  stock.  The  lessons  and  example 
of  the  Marquise  influence  her  friend,  but  the 
influence  develops  seeds  sown  by  no  aid  of  hers. 
The  resemblance  becomes  yet  more  startling  when 
a  trick  of  the  intellect,  or  literary  and  artistic  tastes 
— the  outer  husk — are  no  longer  the  question. 
Turn  to  those  characteristics  which  are  inborn, 
and  not  to  be  changed  by  any  education,  and 


THEIR   PERSONAL   RESEMBLANCE    81 

both  women  are  above  all,  and  to  an  almost  equal 
degree,  the  children  of  passion.  No  one  will 
contest  the  qualification  where  Julie  is  concerned. 
It  is  equally  true  of  Madame  du  Deffand,  notwith- 
standing a  certain  air  of  paradox  that  may  seem  to 
attach  in  her  case.  Call  on  her  heart,  and  she  is  at 
once  all  fire  and  impulse ;  and  this  is  equally  true 
whether  the  motive  is  supplied  by  a  friend,  or  she 
is  herself  touched  upon  a  sensitive  spot,  however 
lightly  or  innocently.  "  Passion,"  writes  Julie  de 
Lespinasse,  "  rules  the  most  part  of  her  decisions. 
The  same  people  or  affairs  first  engross  and 
then  disgust  her,  to  excess  in  both  cases.  To-day 
you  see  her  rend  the  praise  of  yesterday,  laud 
its  condemnations.  Both  contrarieties  are  quite 
honest,  and  born  of  the  moment's  impulse.  She 
obeys  with  the  best  faith  in  the  world,  and  believes 
that  her  present  opinion  is  that  which  she  has 
always  held."  The  friend  who  knew  her  best 
says  almost  the  same.  "She  has  perfect  judg- 
ment, and  her  actions  are  as  completely  at  fault. 
She  is  all  love  or  all  hatred,  enthusiastic  to  passion 
about  a  friend,  always  thirsting  for  love — not  for 
lovers ! — and  the  next  moment  violently  but  openly 
hostile."  Walpole  also  adds  this  exclamation  :  "I 
certainly  do  not  share  Madame  du  Deffand's  opinion 
that  it  were  better  to  be  dead  than  to  love  no  one." 
This  is  the  real  Madame  du  Deffand,  a  very 
different  woman  from  the  one  depicted  in  her  letters. 
Her  apparent  dryness  and  boasted  egoism  are 
simply  the  mask  adopted  by  a  disillusioned  and 
proudly  revengeful  soul,  ever  crying  for  love  and 


82  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

unable  to  find  it — at  least,  never  able  to  believe  in  it. 
This  key  unlocks  the  riddle  of  the  last  bitter  word 
addressed  to  her  secretary  of  forty  years'  service, 
Wiart,  when  she  heard  him  sob  by  her  bedside. 
"  You  mean  to  say  that  you  really  love  me  ?  "  she 
cried,  surprised  and  stupefied  to  find  affection  and 
devotion  in  a  quarter  where  she  had  never  imagined 
that  self-interest  and  custom  could  own  a  rival. 

This  constant  hunger  "  for  love,"  fervid  en- 
thusiasm for  the  pleasure  of  the  moment,  and  the 
over-imaginative  temperament  which  replaces  facts 
by  fancies,  are  equally  characteristic  of  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse,  and  the  source  of  nearly 
all  her  woes.  But  Julie  is  a  trifle  less  defiant 
than  her  friend,  a  little  sweeter  and  more  tender 
in  disposition,  and  this  finer  and  more  delicate 
sensibility  is  matched  with  a  generosity  that 
readily  confesses  its  own  faults,  or  pardons  those 
of  others  so  soon  as  the  first  heat  has  passed. 
Often,  indeed,  she  is  susceptible  to  excess,  so 
that  even  legitimate  indignation  gives  way  to 
affection,  gratitude,  or  old  memories.  This  witty 
saying  about  her  suspicious  patron  could  never 
be  applied  to  herself:  "It  is  easier  to  stand  well 
with  Providence  than  with  her,  for  with  her  a 
venial  sin  blots  out  the  memory  of  many  careful 
years," 

I  have  now  pushed  comparisons  far  enough  to 
show  the  points  of  contact,  and  how  far  common 
were  the  sympathies  of  the  two  women  whom 
destiny  cast  into  the  closest  intercourse.  It  is 
easy  to  foretell  that  this  very  resemblance  of 


MUTUAL    HOPEFULNESS  83 

character  must,  sooner  or  later,  produce  a  profound 
antagonism.  At  first,  however,  and  for  many 
years,  no  cloud  seems  to  have  cast  its  shadow 
on  the  clear  horizon.  When  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse  afterwards  writes,  "  I,  who  was  for 
ten  years  a  victim  of  her  spite  and  tyranny,"  she 
unconsciously  commits  a  real  injustice.  Recent 
suffering,  as  is  its  wont,  has  overshadowed  the 
kindlier  memories  of  early  days,  and  she  illus- 
trates her  own  saying :  "  All  pain  strikes  deep,  but 
pleasure  is  a  bird  of  quick  passage."  The  simple 
truth  of  the  matter  is,  that  an  alliance  of  the  kind 
has  been  seldom  contracted  under  more  favourable 
conditions.  Its  "  honeymoon "  lasted  longer  than 
could  have  been  expected.  No  evidence  can  be 
clearer  than  the  words  of  both  women.  "  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  is  particularly  touched  by 
the  kind  things  you  say  of  her,"  the  Marquise 
writes  to  the  Chevalier  d'Aydie  in  July  1755. 
"  When  you  know  her  better,  you  will  realise  how 
entirely  she  deserves  your  praise.  She  pleases 
me  more  every  day."  Madame  du  Deffand  was 
then  alone  at  Montmorency,  Julie  having  been 
detained  at  home  by  a  slight  indisposition.  Yet 
brief  as  was  the  separation,  a  bare  week,  the 
couple  exchange  daily  letters.  Those  from  Julie 
breathe  the  sincerest  tenderness.  "At  last  I 
have  heard  from  you,  Madame.  It  was  entirely 
natural  that  I  should  not  hear  until  to-day,  but 
I  have  none  the  less  grumbled  at  the  priva- 
tion. If  you  could  understand  what  your  absence 
costs  me,  that  would  be  worth,  if  not  a  second 


84  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

baptism  to  me,  at  all  events  a  second  agony  of 
the  same  kind.  It  is  strange,  but  none  the  less 
true,  that  this  agony  was  one  of  the  happiest 
experiences  of  my  life,  since  it  has  enabled  me 
to  convince  you  of  the  tenderness  and  reality  of 
my  attachment  to  yourself." 

Words  like  these  might  be  held  plain  flattery 
did  not  Julie's  letters  of  the  next  year  confide 
like  sentiments  to  Abel  de  Vichy,  and  bear 
witness  to  an  intimate  accord  between  the  two 
women.  A  slight  misunderstanding  has  annoyed 
the  Marquise,  and  her  nephew  at  once  charges 
his  sister  to  stand  his  ambassador  before  her,  a 
mission  in  which  she  is  perfectly  successful.  Inter- 
course at  Saint  Joseph's  shows  no  trace  of  tyranny 
or  superciliousness  on  the  one  hand,  of  subservi- 
ence or  a  sense  of  inferiority  on  the  other.  All, 
on  the  contrary,  points  to  a  friendly  equality,  the 
familiar  relation  of  persons  of  the  same  rank  with 
no  other  distinctions  than  those  which  are  the 
fruit  of  their  different  ages.  The  one  mothers 
the  other  with  no  hint  of  command.  The  other 
defers,  but  consciously  and  as  to  her  equal.  It 
may  even  be  well  to  state  that  there  is  no 
evidence  to  support  the  idea  that  by  coming  to 
reside  with  an  old  and  blind  woman  Julie  became 
a  reader  or  secretary.  These  were  the  functions 
allotted  to  Wiart,  occasionally  to  Mademoiselle 
Devreux.  If  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  occa- 
sionally performs  their  duties,  this  is  purely  volun- 
tary on  her  part,  an  act  of  good  nature.  She 
receives  neither  emoluments  nor  salary,  and  if 


JULIE'S    FAULTS  85 

Madame  du  Deffand  offered  to  secure  to  her  "an 
annuity  of  four  hundred  livres  "  when  the  scheme 
was  first  broached  at  Champrond,  this  vague  pro- 
mise never  assumed  the  form  of  writing,  and 
certainly  was  never  put  into  effect.  Both  retained 
their  independence,  and  no  question  of  money 
was  to  be  the  storm-centre  from  which  trouble 
issued. 

Julie's  troubles  in  regard  to  her  patron  are  the 
consequence  of  her  youth  and  personal  charms. 
"  I  am  naturally  suspicious,"  Madame  du  Deffand 
early  confessed  to  her,  "  and  from  the  moment  that 
I  think  a  person  is  in  any  way  dealing  craftily 
by  me,  I  lose  all  confidence  in  them."  She  would 
have  confessed  herself  more  truly  had  she  added 
that  she  was  jealous,  and  that,  well  as  she  could 
love  a  friend,  she  demanded  that  this  friend  should 
prefer  herself  above  all  the  world.  The  girl  whom 
she  so  imprudently  took  under  her  roof  doubtless 
tried  her  much  in  this  respect.  Julie  was  no 
coquette  in  the  common  sense  of  that  term,  a 
term  inapplicable  to  a  loyal  and  lofty  nature, 
incapable  of  pettiness  and  opposed  to  all  mean 
manoeuvring.  D'Alembert  can  certainly  be  be- 
lieved on  this  point.  "There  is  nothing  false  about 
you.  You  desire  to  please,  not  on  account  of 
vanity,  which  is  wholly  foreign  to  your  nature, 
but  because  you  both  wish  and  need  to  make 
your  daily  round  as  smooth  as  possible."  This 
friend  is,  however,  equally  truthful  in  his  second 
verdict.  "  I  know  no  one  more  generally  popular 
than  yourself,  and  few  who  keep  a  more  level 


86  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

head  in  despite  of  this.  You  are  certainly  ready 
to  make  the  first  advances  when  others  do  not 
forestall  you  in  this  regard,  but  when  a  person  is 
as  sure  of  her  friends  as  you  are,  she  naturally 
busies  herself  in  enlarging  their  number."  Julie 
seeks  to  please  because  it  is  an  instinct  with  her, 
a  need  of  her  nature,  and  not  because  it  is  a 
habit,  still  less  a  policy.  Indifference  on  the  part 
of  those  whom  she  may  meet  makes  her  uncom- 
fortable in  a  way  not  clearly  to  be  defined,  and 
which  is  more  than  half  subconscious.  But  it 
haunts  her  until  she  feels  that  the  ice  is  thawing 
under  her  personal  charm. 

Few  of  those  who  frequented  Saint  Joseph's 
were  able  to  resist  the  power  of  this  "  magician." 
The  Chevalier  d'Aydie  was  an  early  victim,  but 
President  Henault  proved  no  distant  follower.  He 
was  now  seventy,  half  deaf,  and  by  no  means  irre- 
sistible. Late  hours  and  good  dinners  had  ably 
seconded  the  ravages  of  age,  and  Walpole  crudely 
avers  that  his  bright  eyes  and  rubicund  complexion 
made  him  "  appear  the  complete  drunkard  out 
of  time."  But  he  remained  courteous,  amiable, 
and  witty,  quick  to  fashion  a  quatrain  or  turn 
a  madrigal,  devoted  no  less  than  always  to  the 
ladies,  and  far  more  careful  to  please  them  than 
many  a  younger  man.  All  contemporaries  agree 
that  he  fell  a  complete  victim  to  Julie.  Early  in 
their  acquaintance  he  composed  her  "  portrait,"  a 
document  that  is  to  all  intent  a  declaration.  At 
no  time,  however,  did  he  deceive  himself  as  to 
possibilities,  witness  this  lamentation  :  "  One  would 


VISCOUNT    DE    TAAFE  87 

take  some  trouble  to  turn  your  head,  if  the 
effort  were  not  a  certain  loss  of  labour."  La 
Harpe  asserts  that  the  "trouble"  taken  by  the 
old  President  amounted  to  serious  thoughts  of 
marriage.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add  that 
any  such  labour  was  "  lost,"  whether  its  end  were 
marriage  or  merely  to  secure  the  lady's  affections. 
Julie  gave  him  nothing  beyond  gratitude  and 
respect,  with  a  flavour  of  affection,  and  he  had 
the  good  taste  to  proclaim  himself  satisfied  by 
this  much. 

The  feelings  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  for 
another  admirer,  like  H6nault  a  frequenter  of  the 
salon,  though  no  native  of  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  can 
hardly  be  set  out  thus  simply.  Few  details  of  this 
brief  episode  have  come  down  to  us,  so  few  that  the 
identity  of  the  man  who  first  stirred  her  passionate 
heart  was  long  disputed.  The  story,  as  I  have 
pieced  it  together  from  various  documentary  sources, 
may  be  written  thus:  One  of  the  oldest  Irish  fami- 
lies, that  of  the  Viscounts  de  Taafe,  divided  into 
two  distinct  branches  during  the  eighteenth  century. 
Lord  Carlingford,  of  the  elder  line,  emigrated  to 
Austria  and  found  a  residence  in  Vienna.  Viscount 
de  Taafe,  a  descendant  of  this  man,  and  son-in-law 
to  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  played  an  important 
part  in  Austrian  politics,  and  was  several  times 
employed  on  missions  to  Paris.  He  has  been 
wrongly  held  the  recipient  of  Julie's  friendship  and 
love.  Her  real  hero  was  his  cousin,  a  member  of 
the  younger  branch  of  the  family  which  remained 
loyal  to  England.  He  and  a  brother  were  well 


88  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

known  in  Parisian  society,  being  accustomed  to 
pass  long  periods  in  the  city.  Theobald  de  Taafe, 
the  elder  of  the  two  and  an  M.P.,  met  with  an 
annoying  adventure  during  such  a  visit  in  1752, 
being  imprisoned  for  three  days  in  consequence  of 
a  quarrel  at  the  gaming  tables  with  a  Jewish  usurer 
named  Abraham  Payba.  Released,  and  acquitted 
of  this  man's  accusation,  his  reputation  suffered 
little  hurt.  Only  two  years  later,  we  find  him 
presented  at  the  Court  of  Versailles  by  Lord  Albe- 
marle,  the  British  Ambassador,  and  meeting  with  an 
excellent  reception.  Theobald's  younger  brother, 
whose  Christian  name  appears  in  no  paper,  shared 
the  same  favour,  and  is  the  hero  of  our  story. 

This  young  man  left  politics  to  his  elder  brother. 
A  litterateur,  and  possessed  of  a  pretty  wit,  he 
preferred  philosophical  circles,  and  was  not  averse 
to  general  society.  A  passage  in  the  Due  de 
Luynes'  journal  records,  "  he  supped  with  me  last 
night,  and  had  the  honour  of  playing  at  cavagnole 
with  the  Queen."  He  was  a  friend  of  one  of 
Madame  du  Deffand's  most  faithful  followers.  A 
Scot  by  birth  and  Parisian  by  preference,  John  Craw- 
furd,  "  a  young  man  of  excellent  heart,"  according 
to  Walpole,  was  young,  impetuous,  sincere,  and  only 
too  eager  to  devote  himself.  This  Crawfurd  was 
de  Taafe's  sponsor  in  the  salon  of  Saint  Joseph's. 
His  reception  pleased  him  so  well  that  he  returned 
almost  daily.  Madame  du  Deffand  was  not  slow 
to  credit  this  devotion  to  her  young  companion 
rather  than  to  herself,  nor  to  understand  that  the 
wittiest  talk  round  her  supper-table  counted  with 


THE    MARQUISE    INTERVENES       89 

him  for  much  less  than  certain  conversations  in  a 
convenient  corner  of  the  big  room.  She  was  the 
more  alarmed  by  presently  perceiving  that  Julie's 
response  to  all  this  was  on  a  very  different  plane 
from  that  meted  out  to  the  Chevalier  d'Aydie  or 
President  Henault.  The  young  girl  seemed,  in- 
deed, to  be  slipping  into  the  sweet  insecurity  of  a 
real  attachment. 

So  little  has  come  down  to  us  about  the 
attractive  visitor,  that  we  are  ignorant  of  his  age, 
his  fortune,  or  his  intentions  ;  even  whether  he  was 
married  or  no.  Whatever  the  facts,  the  Marquise 
considered  the  flirtation  compromising  to  her  friend, 
and  resolved  to  put  an  end  to  it.  Miss  Berry, 
legatee  of  Walpole's  papers  and  also  of  those  of 
Madame  du  Deffand,  asserts  that  the  latter's  con- 
duct of  this  delicate  situation  was  irreproachable. 
"There  are  here,"  she  writes,  "letters  in  which 
Monsieur  de  Taafe  explains  his  feelings  towards 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  and  his  gratitude  for 
the  manner  in  which  Madame  du  Deffand  safe- 
guarded her  interests.  These  letters  prove  that 
on  this  occasion  at  least  the  Marquise  treated  her 
friend  as  prudently,  carefully,  and  affectionately 
as  any  mother.  But  the  elder  woman's  remon- 
strances evoked  obstinate  resistance,  and  she 
learned,  perhaps  with  some  surprise,  the  real  Julie 
de  Lespinasse,  so  wise,  so  tractable,  and  so  prudent, 
when  her  heart  is  not  moved,  but,  once  touched  by 
love,  violent,  uncontrollable,  excitable  almost  to 
insanity.  Good  advice  and  exhortations  proving 
useless,  the  Marquise  perforce  resorted  to  other 


90  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

methods  in  order  to  combat  "such  wrong-headed- 
ness."  She  invoked  the  authority  conferred  by 
age,  experience,  and  the  fact  of  consanguinity. 
Julie  was  forbidden  to  see  the  Irishman,  and  for- 
mally ordered  "  to  keep  her  room  "  whenever  he 
called. 

The  consequent  scenes,  part  temper  and  part 
tears,  can  only  be  guessed  from  the  summary 
account  preserved  by  Madame  de  la  Ferte  Im- 
bault.  One  salient  fact  is,  however,  recorded  on 
the  nominal  authority  of  the  Marquise.  "  In  her 
rage,  the  young  woman  took  such  a  dose  of 
opium  that  the  consequences  affected  her  for  life." 
La  Harpe  has  a  similar  entry,  but  he  assigns 
neither  date  nor  reason.  "  Her  previous  excite- 
ment reached  such  a  pitch  that  she  determined  to 
poison  herself.  She  swallowed  sixty  grains  of 
opium.  The  dose  failed  to  produce  the  desired 
death,  but  she  was  thrown  into  the  most  terrible 
convulsions,  and  her  nerves  suffered  for  life." 
Madame  du  Deffand  wept  bitterly  beside  her  bed, 
on  which,  believing  herself  dying,  the  girl  observed, 
"  You  are  too  late,  Madame."  Notwithstanding 
these  two  recitals,  one  may  believe  that  the  facts  are 
exaggerated.  Madame  de  la  Ferte"  Imbault  says 
that  she  had  the  tale  from  the  Marquise  on  the 
morrow  of  the  latter's  final  breach  with  Julie.  La 
Harpe,  dramatist  by  trade,  stands  convicted  of 
having  already  several  times  travestied  and  "  ro- 
manticised" the  story  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespi- 
nasse.  Moreover,  one  of  the  girl's  own  letters, 
written  to  Abel  de  Vichy  at  about  this  time,  con- 


THE    INCIDENT   CLOSED  91 

tains  a  less  tragic  and  more  probable  explanation. 
"  I  know  what  tricks  our  nerves  can  play  by  my 
own  experiences.  I  have  had  such  violent  attacks 
that  I  still  wonder  how  my  health  has  not  been 
permanently  injured,  but  troubles  of  the  kind  seem 
to  have  the  advantage  of  never  affecting  one  per- 
manently." It  seems  a  lawful  supposition  that  the 
girl  was  powerfully  excited  at  being  crossed  in  love, 
and  that  she  now  began  the  baleful  attempt  to 
control  her  nerves  by  repeated  doses  of  opium 
which  remained  her  curse  to  the  end.  A  dramatic 
imagination,  or  the  enmity  of  a  gossip,  could  easily 
twist  this  fact  into  the  story  related  above. 

But  whatever  the  truth,  calm  was  re-established 
with  better  speed  and  more  ease  than  need  have 
been  expected.  Whether  discouraged,  or  bowing 
to  Madame  du  Deffand's  desire,  Monsieur  de  Taafe 
left  Paris  and  returned  to  England.  The  Marquise 
seems  to  imply  that  the  pair  corresponded  none  the 
less,  but  if  this  is  true  their  letters  rapidly  became 
less  frequent,  and  shortly  ceased.  Julie  de  Lespi- 
nasse  is  usually  prodigal  with  the  story  of  her 
sentimental  episodes.  Her  correspondence  ignores 
Monsieur  de  Taafe,  and  she  always  insists  that  the 
Marquis  de  Mora  was  the  first  who  moved  her 
heart  to  real  love.  One  naturally  infers  that  this 
little  romance  was  less  a  passing  passion  than  an 
imaginative  episode,  one  of  those  youthful  pre- 
dilections that  begin  by  seeming  a  storm  ready 
to  sweep  the  world,  clearing  almost  as  soon 
as  formed,  and  leaving  no  deeper  mark  upon 
the  soul  than  a  passing  gust  leaves  on  the 


92  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

changing   surface  of  the  lake   over   which    it   has 
blown. 

Madame  du  Deffand  stands  justified  in  the 
issue  for  wisdom  and  foresight  alike.  She  has 
also  a  right  to  this  act  of  justice — that  her  con- 
duct towards  Julie  is,  thus  far,  beyond  criticism. 
The  notorious  faithlessness  of  her  old  admirers, 
their  exclusive  preoccupation  with  her  guest, 
the  flirtation  begun  under  her  roof,  and  persisted 
in  against  her  express  desire,  the  daily  increasing 
importance  assumed  among  her  friends  by  the  girl 
whom  she  could  so  easily  have  forced  to  play  the 
part  of  a  simple  companion,  all  this  and  more  she 
has  accepted  without  apparent  objection.  Such 
forbearance  is  remarkable  in  a  woman  of  her 
kind,  and  it  will  not  last  indefinitely.  Her  temper 
rises  directly  the  sharer  in  Julie's  misdemeanours 
is  no  longer  a  superannuated  gallant  or  a  casual 
stranger,  but  the  dearest  of  her  friends,  the  man 
who  has  filled  the  first  place  in  her  salon  and 
heart  for  ten  years  past.  The  name  of  d'Alem- 
bert  has  already  appeared  in  this  narrative,  and 
it  is  now  time  to  definitely  construct  the  portrait 
of  the  man  who,  for  many  years  to  come,  exerts 
a  preponderant  influence  on  the  career  of  Julie 
de  Lespinasse. 


CHAPTER    IV 

Youth  of  d'Alembert — His  daily  intimacy  with  Madame  du  Deffand — His 
character,  and  relations  with  women — First  meeting  of  d'Alembert  and 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — His  tender  feeling  for  her — Madame  du 
Deffand  feels  injured — Her  changed  attitude  towards  Julie — Similar 
resentment  against  d'Alembert — Comedy  of  The  Philosophers  and  con- 
sequent quarrel — Journey  of  d'Alembert  to  Prussia — His  letters  to 
Julie — Last  episodes  in  his  friendship  with  Madame  du  Deffand — 
Clandestine  "  first  receptions  "  in  Julie's  apartment — Discovery  by  the 
Marquise — Violent  scene  between  the  two — Their  definite  separation — 
d'Alembert  bids  farewell  to  the  salon  of  Saint  Joseph's — Despair  and 
constant  hatred  of  Madame  du  Deffand. 

THRICE  famous — as  philosopher,  author,  and  yet 
more  as  a  geometrician — the  personality  of  d'Alem- 
bert is  one  of  which  it  would  be  idle  to  trace  a  com- 
plete portrait  in  this  place.  He  is  less  known  as  the 
private  citizen,  with  whom  alone  we  are  here  con- 
cerned. In  respect  of  birth  he  is,  as  already  indi- 
cated, a  curious  parallel  to  Julie.  Both  are  the 
issue  of  an  irregular  attachment,  and  of  women 
of  the  highest  rank.  His  mother,  the  Marquise 
de  Tencin,  like  Madame  d'Albon  in  similar  circum- 
stances, retired  to  the  house  of  one  Master  Molin, 
surgeon  to  the  King.  But  here  the  parallel  is 
broken.  His  mother,  far  from  risking  everything 
to  keep  her  child  under  her  own  eye,  abandoned 
him  forthwith.  On  the  seventeenth  day  of  No- 
vember in  the  year  1717,  a  policeman  found  the 
infant  on  the  steps  of  the  Church  of  Saint  Jean- 
le-Rond,  in  the  parish  of  Notre  Dame.  He  was 


94  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

immediately  baptized,  under  the  name  of  his 
sanctuary,  as  Jean  Baptiste  Lerond,  and  put  to 
nurse  in  the  Picard  village  of  Cremery,  near 
Montdidier.  Six  weeks  later,  an  agent  of  his 
natural  father  fortunately  discovered  the  child 
and  brought  him  back  to  Paris.  This  father  was 
the  Chevalier  Destouches,  a  commissary  of  artil- 
lery popularly  called  Destouches-canon  to  distinguish 
him  from  a  namesake.  Libertine  as  he  was,  the 
man  was  sufficiently  honest  and  tender-hearted. 
Returning  from  a  commission  abroad,  he  learned 
of  the  child's  birth  and  abandonment  at  the  same 
moment.  As  a  married  man  he  dared  not  claim 
his  son,  but  he  immediately  made  provision  for 
his  infancy  and  subsequent  education. 

Madame  Suard  relates  a  picturesque  story, 
told  her  by  d'Alembert  himself,  of  the  rough 
soldier  scouring  Paris  in  his  carnage  in  search 
of  a  nurse.  But  the  infant,  rolled  in  his  cloak, 
was  so  weakly  a  creature,  "with  his  head  like 
an  apple,"  and  hands  "  like  spindles,"  termi- 
nating in  fingers  "small  as  needles,"  that  no 
woman  would  accept  responsibility  for  a  baby 
"which  seemed  at  the  last  gasp."  But  his  wan- 
derings came  to  an  end  at  last  in  the  Faubourg 
Saint  Antoine.  Madame  Rousseau,  a  good  soul 
and  wife  of  a  simple  glazier,  received  the  miser- 
able object  in  sheer  pity,  saved  his  life  by  her 
care,  and  was  his  veritable  mother  until  Destouches 
considered  the  child  old  enough  to  be  put  to  school. 
I  need  not  dwell  on  the  boy's  scholastic  success. 
He  rapidly  passed  as  Bachelor  and  Master  of 


YOUTH    OF    D'ALEMBERT  95 

Arts,  was  successful  in  the  Schools  of  Law  and 
of  Medicine,  and  finally  established  a  threefold 
reputation  in  geometry,  chemistry,  and  medicine. 
The  reason  for  the  manner  in  which  his  name 
was  meanwhile  changed  is  not  apparent,  for  the 
original  Lerond  was  successively  transformed  into 
d'Aremberg,  d'Arembert,  and  finally  d'Alembert. 

Destouches  died  in  1726,  leaving  his  son  the 
modest  income  of  1200  livres,  sufficient  for  his 
simple  needs.  He  lodged  with  his  adopted  mother, 
the  glazier's  good  wife,  in  her  "  hovel "  in  Rue 
Michel-le-Comte.  In  this  obscure  corner  society 
suddenly  fell  upon  d'Alembert,  elevating  him  in 
a  day  to  the  position  of  a  favourite,  one  of  those 
chosen  guests  for  whom  Paris  scrambles  during 
the  brief  period  of  their  fame. 

If  Madame  de  la  Fert6  Imbault  is  to  be 
believed,  the  honour  of  this  discovery  belongs 
to  Madame  Geoffrin.  The  latter,  famous  huntress 
of  every  kind  of  celebrity,  and  especially  desirous 
of  attaching  the  rising  stars,  annexed  the  wise 
young  man  whom  all,  masters  and  fellow-students 
alike,  conspired  to  laud  as  a  "  prodigy,"  the  coming 
genius,  and  admirable  no  less  for  his  simplicity 
than  as  a  wit  and  a  person  of  unquenchable  high 
spirits.  Surprising  as  it  seems  to-day,  d'Alem- 
bert's  first  real  success  was  due  to  the  latter  repu- 
tation. If  society  did  not  pet  him  as  its  "fool," 
he  was  at  least  its  "  entertainer,"  and  in  this 
guise  he  found  entrance  into  the  "kingdom  of  the 
Rue  Saint  Honore."  A  peerless  recounter  of  comic 
tales,  he  possessed  "  a  particular  talent  for  mimick- 


96  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

ing  the  actors  of  the  Opera  or  Comddie,  that  really 
made  one  die  of  laughter.  .  .  .  Finding  this  trick 
successful,  he  set  himself  to  parody  Messieurs  de 
Mairan  and  de  Fontenelle  and  other  visitors 
at  my  mother's  salon,  a  whim  which  won  him  a 
reputation  for  ill-nature."  Abb£  Galiani  corro- 
borates this,  and  cannot  refrain  from  imparting 
to  d'Alembert  himself  the  wonder  with  which  the 
Neapolitans  receive  his  account  of  his  celebrated 
friend,  "the  little  man,  who  imitates  others  and  is 
as  haughty  as  can  be.  They,  one  and  all,  seek  to 
make  you  out  as  large  as  Saint  Christopher,  serious 
and  bearded,  a  very  Moses  or  Michael  Angelo." 

The  fame  of  this  charming  guest  spread  rapidly 
through  the  salons^  and  soon  reached  the  most 
worldly  circles.  With  these,  if  some  complained  of 
his  "  inexperience,"  d'Alembert  was  none  the  less 
successful,  for  the  world  does  not  smile  less  at  a 
witticism  or  laugh  less  at  a  parody  because  their 
author  is  a  trifle  raw  and  ingenuous.  Few, 
naturally,  imagined  that  this  "  schoolboy  truant," 
and  joyous  comrade  at  the  supper-table,  had  worn 
the  daylight  out  in  his  miserable  lodging  over 
columns  of  figures,  calculations  of  "dynamic  forces," 
a  laborious  astronomical  problem  ;  or  that  this  "  idle 
fellow  "  owned  one  of  the  most  luminous  and  pro- 
found intellects  of  his  day.  "  He  amused  them," 
Madame  du  Deffand  records,  "  but  they  never 
deemed  him  worth  a  more  serious  thought.  Such 
an  entry  on  the  world  might  excusably  disgust  him, 
and  he  was  not  long  in  beating  a  retreat."  The 
writer  of  these  lines  exercised  a  powerful  influence 


THEIR   FRIENDSHIP  97 

in  opening  the  young  man's  life,  showing  him  the 
vanity  of  so  facile  a  success  and  its  inevitable  effect 
on  his  dignity.  Having  demonstrated  the  necessity 
of  relaxation  after  severe  mental  efforts,  she  offered 
him  the  hospitality  of  a  house  where  he  would  find 
a  nicer  discrimination,  and  would  be  treated  in 
better  accord  with  his  real  worth.  Their  long 
friendship  was  the  result. 

The  couple  first  met  in  1743,  in  President 
Henault's  salon,  and  mutual  attraction  was  not 
long  in  ripening  into  intimacy.  The  Marquise  du 
Deffand  was  then  lodging  with  her  brother  the 
Canon,  close  to  La  Sainte  Chapelle,  and  not  far 
from  the  young  philosopher's  poor  abode.  Few 
evenings,  afterwards,  saw  them  apart — he  defer- 
ential to,  and  confiding  in,  this  woman  of  such  high 
place  and  amazing  intellect,  she  motherly  and  pro- 
tecting without  assumption,  more  ambitious  for  him 
than  he  was  for  himself.  It  was  as,  she  says,  "the 
golden  age  of  their  friendship."  Her  removal  to 
Saint  Joseph's  threatened  to  break  in  upon  this 
daily  intercourse,  since  they  now  lived  at  a  distance 
from  each  other.  Count  des  Alleurs  condoles  with 
Madame  du  Deffand  about  this  time.  "  I  am 
vexed  to  think  that  you  and  Monsieur  d'Alembert 
will  see  less  of  each  other  now  that  you  have  moved 
to  the  Convent.  The  Faubourg  Saint  Germain 
cannot  easily  replace  so  witty  and  necessary  a 
friend,  one,  too,  with  such  varied  accomplishments, 
despite  his  supreme  excellence  as  a  geometrician." 
The  tie  survived  this  trial,  however,  and  when  in 
the  summer  of  1752  the  Marquise  left  Paris  to  hide 

G 


98  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

her  grief  and  blindness  at  Champrond,  d'Alembert 
found  the  city  so  dull  and  empty  that  he  was  over- 
taken by  a  fit  of  misanthropy  which  accorded  ill 
with  his  usual  sprightly  mood.    "  I  am  now,"  he  tells 
her,  "  a  hundred  times  more  enamoured  of  retire- 
ment and  solitude  than  I  was  when  you  left  Paris. 
I    seldom  or  never  dine  or  sup  elsewhere  than  at 
home,  and  this  sort  of  existence  suits  me  admirably." 
These  solitary  habits  did  not,  however,  make 
d'Alembert  any  less  anxious  for  the  return  of  his 
old  friend  to  the  hospitable  apartment  where    he 
promises  to  bear  her  constant  and  faithful  company. 
He  will  dine  with  her  as  often  as  she  likes,  always 
provided  "  that  no  third  person  is  allowed  to  in- 
trude," and  he  willingly   permits  her   to  fulfil  her 
vow  of  "sleeping  for  twenty-two  hours  out  of  the 
twenty-four,  for  so  long  as  we  pass  the  remaining 
two  together."      Her  gratitude  for  these  promises 
is  quite  emotional.     "  I  am  truly  eager  to  see  you, 
to  talk  with  you.  .  .  .  We  will  have  many  dinners 
alone,  and  we  will  confirm  each  other's  resolution 
to  allow  our  happiness  to  depend  on   no  one  but 
ourselves.     You  will — perhaps? — learn  to  tolerate 
men,  I  to  do  without  them  ! "     "  He  is  my  intimate 
friend  and  I  love  him  passionately,"  she  writes  to 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  about  the  same  time. 
These  are  no  vain  words,  but  matched  with  deeds, 
for   the    renewal    of    old   ties   which    followed    on 
Madame  du  Deffand's  return  to  the  Convent  was, 
if  possible,  marked  by  even  greater  warmth  than 
heretofore.       It   culminated   next   year,    when    the 
Marquise  moved  heaven  and  earth  to  secure  the 


"THE    SLAVE    OF    LIBERTY"        99 

election  of  her  favourite,  now  for  the  third  time 
seeking  admittance  to  the  Academy.  The  Duchesse 
de  Chaulnes  supported  Abbe  Trublet.  Both  women 
used  their  arms  without  scruple,  and  there  was  a 
truly  Homeric  battle  between  the  beauty  of  the 
one  and  the  intellect  of  the  other.  D'Alembert 
alone  seems  to  have  remained  calm,  and  when  he 
refused  to  assure  himself  the  vote  of  President 
Henault  by  praising  the  latter's  Abridged  Chro- 
nology in  the  Encyclopaedia,  his  patron  lost  all 
patience.  "  I  decline  even  to  mention  the  thing," 
he  retorted,  "  for  it's  impossible  to  say  a  word  more 
than  that  the  book  is  handy,  useful,  and  has  sold 
well — praise  that  is  scarcely  satisfying.  .  .  .  Not 
heaven  and  yourself,  nor  yourself  alone,  shall  make 
me  add  another  word."  D'Alembert  was  finally 
successful,  and  we  may  be  sure  that,  triumphant  as 
he  was,  one  friend  was  yet  more  jubilant. 

This  brief  sketch  of  his  youth  will  serve  to 
indicate  d'Alembert's  character.  However  stiff- 
necked  in  the  face  of  constraint,  or  inclined  to 
stand  upon  his  pride  to  the  point  of  sacrificing 
both  pleasure  and  interest  to  his  independence — 
thus  justifying  Madame  du  Deffand  when  she 
nicknamed  him  "  A  Slave  of  Liberty " — he  was 
still  a  man  of  rare  temper,  agreeable,  easy  to  live 
with,  even — in  his  own  words — "easy  to  lead, 
provided  that  I  do  not  see  the  guiding  hand." 
While  intellectually  sceptical  and  incredulous,  ready 
to  quarrel  with  old  beliefs  and  secular  traditions, 
he  is,  at  the  same  time,  almost  ingenuously  simple 
in  his  dealings  with  other  men,  incapable  of  a 


zoo  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

feint,  still  more  of  a  lie,  and  so  at  the  mercy  of  ill- 
faith  on  the  part  of  others.  This  singular  contrast 
explains  the  diversity  of  contemporary  judgment 
upon  his  character.  To  a  casual  acquaintance  or 
superficial  eyes  he  appears  cold,  dry,  caustic, 
bitterly  ironical.  Real  friends,  be  they  never  so 
few,  find  him  frankly  affectionate,  devoted,  zeal- 
ously active  in  their  interests.  This  portrait  of 
himself  is  sufficiently  just.  "  No  man  is  more 
moved  by  the  welfare  or  sorrow  of  his  friends. 
They  haunt  his  rest  and  banish  sleep.  He  will 
make  any  sacrifice  to  help  them." 

His  attitude  towards  woman  is  full  of  tike 
contradictions.  Poverty,  self- containment,  and  a 
passion  for  work,  shielded  his  youth.  If  he  knew 
the  meaning  of  temptation,  he  certainly  did  not 
share  the  dissipations  of  his  comrades  at  college. 
Later,  suddenly  launched  into  very  real  life,  his 
heart  was  stirred,  but  old  habit  covered  its  emo- 
tions with  a  veil  of  discreet  and  almost  perfect 
silence.  An  irrepressible  talker,  brilliant  and  over- 
flowing with  wit  at  a  crowded  table  or  when  faced 
by  an  audience,  he  was  no  sooner  alone  with  one 
of  the  fair  inspirers  than  his  voice  is  gone,  he  is 
artificial,  stupid,  and  clumsy,  ready  to  snatch  the 
first  excuse  for  flight.  Certainly,  he  did  not  meet 
with  much  encouragement,  but  this  was  not  on 
account  of  any  physical  defects.  He  was  built 
on  the  small  scale,  slight,  moderately  well  dressed, 
"  his  hair  negligently  combed,"  but  of  perfectly  pre- 
sentable manners  and  appearance.  His  features, 
at  all  events  in  youth,  were  of  the  kind  "which 


HIS   CHARACTER  101 

attract  no  remark,  good  or  bad,"  notwithstanding 
that  a  certain  malicious  gleam  in  the  eyes,  and 
frank  features,  united  to  give  his  face  a  certain 
attractiveness.  None  the  less,  he  was  by  no 
means  popular  with  the  sex,  and  when  he  enters 
this  story,  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven,  d'Alembert 
claims  no  further  conquests  than  the  daughter  of 
his  old  nurse,  Mademoiselle  Rousseau,  "  a  little 
person  who  turned  my  heart  for  a  moment,"  and 
who  returned  the  inclination.  But  even  this  mild 
essay  in  Platonism  does  not  seem  to  have  lasted 
out  the  spring! 

D'Alembert's  persistent  discreetness,  coupled 
with  the  piercing,  almost  "  yapping "  quality  of 
his  voice,  was  turned  to  unpleasant  account  in  the 
gossip  of  his  enemies.  A  remark  went  the  rounds, 
said  to  have  been  made  by  a  witty  lady  in  reply 
to  the  fervid  exclamation  of  a  partisan  who  cried, 
"Why,  the  man's  a  god!"  "So!"  ran  the  retort. 
"If  he  were  a  god,  he'd  make  a  man  of  himself 
pretty  soon  ! "  Even  his  friends  permit  themselves 
a  strange  licence.  Monsieur  de  Formont  writes 
to  say,  "  The  Duchesse  de  Luynes  thinks  that 
you  lack  certain  talents  indispensable  in  a  great 
man.  She  says  that  you  are  no  better  than  a 
child,  and  would  be  trusted  as  such  even  by  the 
Grand  Turk.  I,  at  all  events,  take  no  stock  of 
such  sayings,  and  am  assured  that  you  would 
play  your  part  excellently  in  whatever  you  under- 
took to  do."  I  should  not  have  touched  upon 
this  point  but  for  its  possible  bearing  upon  the 
relations  between  d'Alembert  and  Mademoiselle 


102  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

de  Lespinasse,  and  I  will  now  leave  it.  What- 
ever the  degree  of  credit  due  to  the  philosopher, 
his  conduct  was  little  less  excellent  than  his  heart 
was  sensitive  and  hungry  for  affection.  Called 
dry  and  egotistical,  his  nature  was  in  reality 
cramped  for  want  of  objects  on  which  to  expand. 
While  apparently  indifferent,  he  constantly  hun- 
gered for  opportunities  to  bestow  his  affection,  and 
sadly  aspired  towards  an  undiscovered  paradise. 
To  quote  his  autobiographical  portrait  once  more : 
"  This  feeling  slumbered  in  the  deeps  of  his  soul, 
and  the  awakening  was  terrible.  Having  con- 
sumed his  best  years  in  thought  and  study,  he 
was  to  share  the  sage's  discovery  of  the  emptiness 
of  human  knowledge.  With  Tasso's  Aminta  he 
has  cried,  '/  have  lost  all  the  years  wherein  I 
was  not  learned  to  love  ! ' ' 

D'Alembert  was  in  this  state  of  mind  when, 
one  April  evening  in  the  year  1754,  he  met 
destiny  in  the  person  of  a  charming  girl,  like 
himself  an  orphan,  nameless  and  without  fortune, 
of  exquisite  intelligence  and  manner,  and  almost 
thrust  upon  his  daily  notice  in  the  dangerous  and 
delicious  intimacy  of  his  old  friend's  home.  It 
seems  certain  that  the  philosopher  surrendered 
almost  at  first  sight.  The  "  Portrait "  dedicated 
to  Julie  in  1771  contains  the  confession.  "Time 
and  custom  stale  all  things,  but  they  are  powerless 
to  touch  my  affection  for  you,  an  affection  which 
you  inspired  seventeen  years  ago."  It  seems  little 
less  certain  that  a  sweet  familiarity,  a  complete 
surrender  of  the  heart,  rapidly  grew  up  between 


RAPID    SURRENDER   TO   JULIE     103 

them,  and  that  they  were  confidential  from  an 
early  date.  "  I  could  see  their  budding  friend- 
ship," says  Marmontel,  "  when  Madame  du  Deffand 
brought  them  to  sup  with  my  friend  Madame 
Harenc."  A  note  written  by  Julie  in  the  year  of 
her  coming  to  Paris  proves  that  she  was  already 
her  friend's  ambassador  before  the  Marquise.  "  I 
shall  undoubtedly  surprise  you,"  she  writes  to  her 
patron,  "  by  my  news.  Monsieur  d'Alembert  goes 
to  Saint  Martin  to-morrow  and  will  not  return 
till  Thursday.  He  has  had  no  choice  about  going, 
as  Madame  Boufflers  commanded  him  to  do  so, 
and  is  taking  him  with  her  to-morrow.  He  has 
made  me  promise  to  assure  you  that  he  greatly 
missed  you  while  at  Montmorency,  and  that  he 
does  not  at  all  relish  such  a  long  separation." 

Few  friendships  should,  after  all,  seem  less 
surprising  than  this,  in  which  almost  every  cir- 
cumstance conspired  to  bring  two  people  together. 
"  Both  of  us  lack  parents  and  family,"  d'Alembert 
was  afterwards  to  write,  "  and  having  suffered 
abandonment,  misfortune,  and  unhappiness  from 
our  birth,  nature  seemed  to  have  sent  us  into 
the  world  to  find  each  other  out,  to  be  to  each 
other  all  that  each  has  missed,  to  stand  together 
like  two  willows,  bent  by  the  storm  but  not  up- 
rooted, because  in  their  weakness  they  have  inter- 
twined their  branches."  One  may  conceive  of 
moments  in  the  long  hours  spent  together  when 
the  one  sheds  furtive  tears  while  her  companion 
preaches  the  patience  taught  by  his  stoical  logic, 
the  philosophic  calm  which  somehow  fails  at  times. 


io4  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Grimm,  their  common  friend,  says  that  "  Not  all 
d'Alembert's  lessons,  nor  even  the  example  of  his 
own  courage,  were  able  to  console  her  for  the 
misfortune  of  having  been  born.*' 

Deeply  sincere  sympathy,  absolute  trust,  and 
presently  warm  gratitude  for  his  absolute  devotion 
— sentiments  of  high  value,  certainly — Julie  never 
stinted  to  her  friend.  But  at  no  time  did  she 
go  further.  Her  affair  with  Monsieur  de  Taafe 
proves  that  it  was  so  in  the  beginning.  The 
whole  story  of  her  life  demonstrates  that  so  it 
was  to  the  end.  D'Alembert  was  probably  long 
in  giving  her  reason  to  suspect  a  deeper  feeling. 
His  natural  self-containment  and  the  morbid  secre- 
tiveness  of  a  fearful  aspirant,  as  well  as  the  fear  of 
repulse,  kept  his  lips  sealed.  One  of  his  letters 
of  nine  years  later,  1763,  allows  the  belief  that 
even  so  late  he  had  not  risked  an  open  declara- 
tion. Writing  to  Julie  from  Berlin,  to  recount 
the  King  of  Prussia's  wish  to  keep  him  at  court 
and  his  refusal  of  the  honour,  he  says  :  "  The  King 
is  pleased  to  flatter  himself  that  I  may  one  day 
become  President  of  his  Academy,  but  apart  from 
a  thousand  reasons,  one  of  which  you  haven  t  the 
wits  to  guess,  I  think  that  this  climate  would  pre- 
sently destroy  me."  This  is  the  most  audacious 
passage  in  all  the  twenty-three  long  letters  to  his 
well-beloved  which  have  come  down  to  us,  and 
the  passage  does  not  lose  in  meaning  if  we  re- 
member that  the  extant  letters  are  copies  of  the 
originals  made  by  Julie's  own  hand,  which  need 
have  contained  nothing  that  she  wished  to  suppress. 


JEALOUSY  OF  MME.  DU  DEFFAND     105 

Closely  as  he  guarded  his  secret,  d'Alembert's 
flames  were  not  the  less  plain  for  the  blindest 
eye  to  see.  Learned  as  she  was  in  the  ways 
of  man,  the  Marquise  du  Deffand  was  doubt- 
less far  quicker  than  Julie  in  observing  the  ex- 
clusive attention  lavished  on  her  companion,  the 
passionate  cult  of  which  she  was  the  object,  the 
complete  influence  which  she  was  gradually  obtain- 
ing, not  only  over  the  emotions  of  d'Alembert, 
but  over  his  tastes,  ideas,  and  even  acts.  Few 
things  could  touch  her  more  nearly  than  such  a 
discovery,  and  it  touched  her  in  her  most  sensi- 
tive spot.  She  might  have  suffered — probably  she 
would  have  at  least  excused — a  less  exalted  error, 
a  love  in  which  the  senses  were  concerned  rather 
than  the  spirit.  She  would  certainly  have  suffered 
less  from  something  of  the  kind  than  in  now 
seeing  slip  from  her  control  the  man  whose  genius 
she  admired,  and  whom  she  considered  her  eternal 
subject.  "  She  is  jealous  neither  of  sympathy  nor 
of  wits,"  Julie  was  to  write  of  her,  "but  only 
of  preferences  and  attentions.  These  she  never 
pardons,  whether  in  those  who  bestow  or  those 
who  receive.  She  seems  to  arrogate  to  herself  the 
words  of  Christ,  and  to  command  all  who  come  into 
her  circle,  '  Sell  all  that  thou  hast  and  follow  me' " 
Walpole  makes  a  similar  reproach  at  a  later  date. 
"  You  are  exacting  beyond  all  belief.  We  are  to 
exist  for  you  alone,  and  while  you  poison  your 
days  by  suspicion  and  mistrust,  your  friends  are 
driven  away  through  the  sheer  impossibility  of 
pleasing  you."  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  is  to  the 


106  JULIE   DE    LESPINASSE 

point.  "  She  did  not  fail  to  see  that  I  was  neglect- 
ing her,  and  of  course  this  was  more  than  enough 
to  put  her  into  a  rage.  One  cannot  fail  to  see 
how  dangerous  a  woman  of  this  kind  may  be, 
but  I  prefer  the  scourge  of  her  wrath  to  the  curse 
of  her  friendship." 

Mademoiselle  Rousseau,  daughter  of  a  poor 
glazier,  had  once  earned  the  "  aversion "  of  the 
Marquise — all  for  a  spring-fancy  of  d'Alembert. 
One  can  imagine  the  feeling  roused  by  this  spec- 
tacle of  a  real  and  lasting  passion,  of  the  heart 
and  of  the  brain ;  a  romance  unfolding  before  her 
very  eyes  and  in  her  own  house,  of  which  the 
heroine  was  the  girl  whom  she  had  found  in  a  far 
province  and  taken  to  herself,  made  a  part  of  her 
own  life,  had,  as  it  were,  adopted.  Injury  was 
piled  on  injury  when  she  realised  that  the  rival 
was  her  real  equal  by  birth  no  less  than  intellect, 
and  that  youth  and  presence  stood  all  for  her, 
all  against  herself. 

Far  from  our  being  astonished  at  the  way  in 
which  this  affair  moved  Madame  du  Deffand,  she 
should  probably  be  credited  with  much  forbearance. 
For  the  space  of  several  years  she  mastered  her 
feelings,  was  able  to  repress  the  dumb  anger  that 
fed  upon  her,  and  maintained  at  least  a  semblance 
of  the  motherly  relation  so  imprudently  assumed 
towards  the  girl.  Doubtless  she  still  hoped  that 
this  would  prove  no  more  than  a  second  passing 
attraction,  one  of  those  aberrations  of  the  spirit 
from  which  not  philosophy  itself  may  preserve  a 
disciple,  and  called  to  mind  her  friend  Duchy's 


ITS    EFFECTS    ON   JULIE  107 

saying  in  a  similar  case,  "  Friendship  sleeps  while 
love  wakens,  but  friendship  profits  in  the  end." 
She  did  not  lose  her  patience  until  love  finally 
confessed  its  conquest,  possibly  its  proscription  of 
friendship,  until  she  no  longer  owned  so  much  as 
a  corner  of  the  heart  which  another  had  taken  whole 
from  between  her  hands.  She  was  too  clever  and 
too  proud  to  give  way  to  complaints  or  reproaches 
even  then.  Smothering  her  pain,  she  changes  her 
conduct  not  at  all,  makes  no  effort  to  break  in  upon 
the  daily  meetings,  or  in  any  way  to  separate  the 
two  inseparables.  Her  growing  displeasure  with 
the  girl  finds  expression  only  in  shades — a  colder 
tone,  an  affected  reserve,  more  petty  demands,  a 
closer  holding  of  her  to  minute  duties,  above  all, 
a  new  insistence  on  the  fact  that  she  is  a  poor 
dependent  in  a  painfully  false  position.  And  all 
this  comes  about  as  it  were  by  accident — nothing 
striking  in  act,  no  wounding  speeches,  but  a  nice 
malice  behind  the  spoken  word  or  the  tone  of  the 
voice,  a  something  that  makes  the  most  innocent 
phrases  sting. 

Few  things  hurt  a  nervous  and  impressionable 
nature  more  than  the  repetition  of  such  pin-pricks. 
Julie  is  hurt  in  her  pride  and  wounded  in  her  heart. 
This  constant  rejection  of,  these  misconstructions 
placed  upon,  the  real  affection  and  gratitude  with 
which  she  has  repaid  Madame  du  Deffand's  earlier 
kindnesses,  chafe  her,  and  the  weight  of  the  chains 
so  lightly  worn  until  now  grows  daily  less  endurable. 
The  enforced  waiting  upon  a  "  blind  and  vapours- 
ridden  old  woman,"  the  obligation  under  which  she 


io8  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

labours  of  sharing  the  Marquise's  habit  of  "turning1 
day  into  night  and  night  into  day,"  of  constantly 
sitting  by  her  bedside,  often  of  reading  her  to 
sleep,  all  the  duties  readily  assumed  when  she 
believed  them  repaid  with  affection,  now  seem 
an  insupportable  imposition,  an  odious  servitude. 
Her  moral  weariness  and  heartfelt  disgust  find 
undisguised  confession  in  these  lines,  addressed  to 
a  friend :  "  Fontainebleau  and  1'Isle-Adam  have 
completely  swept  away  the  society  in  which  we 
live — not  that  I  should  greatly  care,  were  it  not  for 
Madame  du  Deffand.  Personally,  I  should  be  per- 
fectly happy  never  to  go  out,  and  never  to  see 
more  than  the  five  or  six  friends  who  are  more  or 
less  necessary  to  my  happiness  or  amusement.  But 
these  days  as  they  are  fill  me  with  admiration,  or 
rather  affliction.  They  are  an  eternal  constraint 
and  privation.  Possibly  once  in  a  month  I  may 
have  the  good  fortune  to  do  something  by  my  own 
wish,  yet  I  promise  you  that  there  are  very  few 
moments  when  there  is  not  something  that  I  should 
like  to  do,  or  some  taste  that  I  would  gladly  satisfy. 
Confess  that,  if  I  have  greatly  raised  myself  in 
your  esteem,  your  idea  of  my  happiness  has  fallen 
pretty  low." 

Witness  of  her  troubles  and  first  confidant  of 
her  complaints,  d'Alembert  became  more  and  more 
vexed  at  heart,  and  rapidly  estranged  from  the  old 
friend  whom  he  accused  of  cruelty  and  injustice. 
Hurt  by  his  coldness,  the  Marquise  did  not  spare 
him  in  turn,  and  a  succession  of  stinging  words 
and  rebuffs  deepened  the  breach.  Matters  were  at 


ANGER   AGAINST    D'ALEMBERT      109 

this  pass  when,  in  1760,  the  trouble  was  suddenly 
aggravated  by  a  futile  incident  recorded  by  Madame 
de  la  Ferte  Imbault.  It  appears  that  the  Marquise, 
in  a  letter  to  Voltaire,  gave  free  rein  to  a  "very 
bitter  "  pen  on  the  subject  of  their  common  friend, 
d'Alembert.  Voltaire's  reply  alluded  to  these  acid 
remarks.  A  few  days  later,  the  malicious  old 
woman  turned  a  conversation  to  the  subject  of 
these  letters  "to  amuse  the  company,"  and  begged 
some  one  present  to  read  them  aloud.  D'Alembert 
had  meanwhile  entered  the  room  unannounced,  as 
was  his  custom.  He  heard  the  letters  read,  and 
affected  to  laugh  at  the  incident.  But  he  was 
profoundly  hurt,  and  the  mathematician  Fontaine, 
a  witness  of  the  scene,  "  and  as  able  to  calculate 
characters  as  figures  or  lines,"  having  carried  the 
whole  tale  to  the  salon  of  Madame  Geoffrin  that 
same  evening,  concluded  his  narration  with  the 
prophecy  "that  d'Alembert  would  take  a  very 
interesting  revenge  on  Madame  du  Deffand,  and 
that  his  instrument  would  be  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse."  He  certainly  complained  to  Voltaire, 
who  took  his  usual  way  out  of  the  difficulty — denied 
everything,  and  asserted  that  his  word  was  enough 
to  refute  any  evidence  to  the  contrary.  He  had 
the  effrontery  to  write,  "  Know  that  Madame  du 
Deffand  never  sent  me  the  letter  of  which  you 
complain.  She  apparently  let  fall  some  observa- 
tions, or  you  said  something  to  her  which  provoked 
reprisals." 

This  denial  naturally  carried  no  conviction,  but 
d'Alembert  was   shortly  offered  the  means  of  re- 


no  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

taliation.  Palissot's  comedy  of  The  Philosophers 
appeared  just  at  this  time — a  violent  manifesto 
against  the  entire  Encyclopsedist  clan.  Madame 
Geoffrin,  Diderot,  d'Alembert  himself,  all  the 
leaders  of  the  host  whose  head  was  the  master 
of  Ferney,  were  brought  upon  the  stage  and 
mercilessly  ridiculed  under  the  most  transparent 
pseudonyms.  Every  writer's  pen  was  instantly 
out,  sharp  as  a  sword,  and  Parisian  society  divided 
itself  into  two  hostile  camps,  the  one  applauding, 
the  other  reviling  Palissot.  Madame  du  Deffand 
was  among  the  few  neutrals  in  this  war  of  words, 
or,  more  exactly,  the  Marquise  confined  herself  to 
jeering  at  either  party,  lashing  Encyclopaedists  and 
"saints"  with  a  fine  impartiality.  D'Alembert 
was  immensely  annoyed.  He  wrote  to  Voltaire, 
denouncing  the  Marquise  in  terms  that  do  little 
honour  to  a  philosophical  mind.  "  The  avowed 
female  patrons  of  this  piece  are  Mesdames  de 
Villeroy,  de  Robecq,  and  du  DefTand,  your  friend 
and  formerly  mine.  This  means  nothing  else  than 
that  these  creatures  have  a  hand  in  the  game  and 
.  .  .  profits." 

D'Alembert's  act  was  nothing  short  of  trea- 
chery, being  simply  an  attempt  to  cause  a  breach 
between  Madame  du  Deffand  and  her  oldest  and 
most  illustrious  friend.  But  Voltaire  was  for  once 
his  better  self.  "  Madame  de  Robecq,"  he  writes 
to  the  Marquise,  "has  had  the  misfortune  to  pro- 
tect this  piece  and  procure  its  presentation.  I 
have  been  told  that  you  have  a  hand  in  the  enter- 
prise, an  announcement  that  pained  me  greatly. 


THEIR   RECONCILIATION          in 

If  it  be  true,  confess  yourself,  and  so  I  shall  give 
you  absolution."  The  Marquise's  reply  was  equally 
dignified.  "You  have  heard  something  pretty  bad 
about  me  ?  I  am  an  admirer  of  the  Frerons  and 
Palissots,  and  a  declared  enemy  of  the  Encyclo- 
paedists ?  I  deserve  neither  such  honours  nor  such 
slanders.  .  .  .  Far  from  joining  myself  to  Madame 
de  Robecq,  I  have  declared  my  opinion  of  her 
revenge  and  of  her  instruments  alike.  ..."  A  later 
passage  in  the  same  letter  shows  that  she  is  aware 
of  the  source  of  this  accusation,  and  the  lines  are 
clearly  marked  with  the  pain  and  indignation  that 
the  treachery  has  caused  her.  "If  duty  bids  raise 
the  hue  and  cry  against  the  enemies  of  the  philo- 
sophers, I  confess  that  I  have  done  nothing  of  the 
kind.  Friendship  alone  inspires  one  to  take  a  hand 
in  this  sort  of  quarrel.  A  few  years  ago,  friendship 
would  very  likely  have  led  me  into  many  stupi- 
dities. To-day  I  should  be  an  unmoved  onlooker 
at  the  strife  of  Gods  and  Giants.  Here,  we  have 
rats  and  frogs  !  " 

Her  conduct  was  as  sober  as  her  words.  Neither 
complaining  nor  reproaching,  she  sought  a  frank 
explanation  with  d'Alembert.  A  more  or  less  real 
reconciliation  followed.  "  I  forgot  to  tell  you,"  the 
philosopher  writes  to  Voltaire,  "that  Madame  du 
Deffand  and  I  have  patched  up  peace,  for  what  it  is 
worth.  She  asserts  that  she  has  had  no  dealings 
with  either  Palissot  or  Freron.  .  .  .  Therefore, 
kindly  do  not  tell  her  of  my  complaints.  It  would 
mean  more  squabbles,  and  I  have  no  relish  for 
such,"  The  Marquise  added  a  last  word  to  the 


ii2  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

affair,  sorting  things  out  and  defining  her  position 
with  exactitude  and  skill.  "  I  have  been  particu- 
larly impartial  in  this  war  of  the  philosophers.  I 
cannot  admire  their  Encyclopaedia.  It  may  be 
admirable,  but  the  few  articles  that  I  have  read 
bore  me  to  death.  I  cannot  accept  as  legislators 
men  who  have  plenty  of  brains,  a  trifle  of  talent,  and 
no  taste  at  all.  Monsieur  d'Alembert  I  except  from 
this  condemnation,  even  though  it  was  he  who 
slandered  me  to  you.  I  pardon  his  error.  His 
reason  is,  after  all,  one  that  merits  some  indul- 
gence. He  is  as  honest  a  man  as  lives,  with  a  big 
heart,  plenty  of  brains,  much  common  sense,  and  a 
good  deal  of  taste  in  a  good  many  things.  But  on 
certain  matters  he  has  become  a  party  man,  and 
here  his  common  sense  fails  him." 

I  have  detailed  this  poor  squabble  at  length 
because  Julie  de  Lespinasse  is  the  real  cause  of  it, 
although  she  never  appears  and  her  name  is  never 
mentioned.  At  once  cause  and  object,  she  has  set 
the  pair  at  enmity — quite  unintentionally,  of  course — 
filled  their  hearts  with  secret  animosities,  and  trans- 
formed a  friendly  alliance  into  that  state  of  prepared 
neutrality  which  must  sooner  or  later  lead  to  open 
war.  To  our  eyes,  the  rupture  is  already  accom- 
plished. Years  of  grace  may  postpone  the  in- 
evitable, but  only  at  the  price  of  embittering  the 
misunderstanding,  prolonging  it,  and  increasing  the 
pain  of  three  persons  surely  made  for  mutual  affec- 
tion and  understanding,  but  now  irremediably 
embroiled  by  the  passion  that  disturbs  their  judg- 
ment and  defies  their  will  The  delay  is,  however, 


PROGRESS   OF   THE   QUARREL    113 

kind  to  the  memory  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse, 
for  a  final  breach  at  this  period  must  have  branded 
her  with  shameful  ingratitude.  Hitherto,  however 
bad  her  temper — an  excusable  fault — Madame  du 
Deffand  has  not  been  seriously  unkind.  Contem- 
porary and  current  opinion  can  only  agree  upon 
this  point.  Later,  on  the  contrary,  her  conduct 
wears  every  appearance  of  injustice  and  tyranny  ; 
and  even  if  this  appearance  be  due  in  part  to  that 
supreme  awkwardness  of  which  only  the  cleverest 
persons  are  capable,  the  conduct  of  a  few  moments 
then  neutralises  the  endurance  of  years,  and  she 
embarks  on  a  contest  from  which  she  cannot  emerge 
with  even  the  bare  honours  of  war. 

Julie  and  d'Alembert  naturally  grew  more  in- 
timate as  they  became  more  embroiled  with  the 
Marquise.  Proof  of  this  is  a  consequence  of  the 
philosopher's  Prussian  journey,  taken  in  1763,  on 
the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  which  closes  the  Seven 
Years'  War.  In  common  with  a  majority  of  the 
Encyclopaedist  leaders,  d'Alembert  had,  throughout 
this  war,  given  constant  expression  to  "  his  tender 
interest  in  the  success  of  the  King  of  Prussia,  the 
philosopher-ruler ! "  He  now  offered  his  warm 
congratulations  on  the  Treaty,  notwithstanding  that 
it  signalised  the  defeat  of  France.  Frederic  replied 
with  a  pressing  invitation  to  Potsdam,  and  the 
"  Marquis  of  Brandenburg,"  as  Pere  Paciaudi  was 
pleased  to  call  d'Alembert,  considered  obedience 
necessary,  little  as  he  relished  it.  Every  post  from 
Prussia  during  his  three  months'  absence  brought 
Julie  a  long  letter,  giving  the  traveller's  observa- 


ii4          JULIE   DE    LESPINASSE 

tions  and  experiences  in  minute  detail.  The 
originals  of  these  letters  are  unfortunately  lost. 
They  survive  only  in  copies  made  by  Julie's  own 
hand,  transcripts  plainly  abridged,  expurgated,  and 
lacking  in  detail,  except  in  the  rare  passages  which 
contain  matter  of  personal  interest  to  the  pair. 
But  d'Alembert's  absolute  confidence  in  his  cor- 
respondent is  clearly  to  be  seen,  no  less  than  his 
constant  thought  of  her,  and  the  preponderant 
influence  which  she  exercises  upon  his  every 
decision. 

When  Frederic  presses  him  to  come  into  per- 
manent residence  at  the  Court  as  President  of  the 
Berlin  Academy,  with  an  apartment  at  Potsdam 
and  a  salary  of  twelve  thousand  pounds,  d'Alembert 
declines  these  alluring  offers  despite  his  poverty, 
just  as  he  declined  those  of  the  Empress  Catherine, 
who,  the  year  before,  proffered  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds  for  life  as  the  fee  for  "educating  her  son." 
As  in  the  previous  case,  the  official  reasons  for 
his  refusal  are  poor  health,  the  rigorous  climate,  and 
his  taste  for  retirement,  but  the  real  reason  is  that 
which  is  discreetly  hinted  in  his  letters  to  Julie. 
To  be  separated  from  her  would  be  too  painful, 
how  painful  he  knows  well  enough,  thanks  to  the 
present  brief  exile.  "  Don't  imagine,"  he  wj-ites, 
"that  my  reception  here  is  turning  my  head.  It  is 
only  teaching  me  once  more  how  precious  is  friend- 
ship, for  not  all  the  balm  that  could  be  poured  upon 
the  greediest  self-conceit  can  replace  that."  Over- 
come as  he  is  by  the  praises  showered  upon  him 
during  this  stay  at  Potsdam,  the  honours  bestowed 


D'ALEMBERT    IN    PRUSSIA        115 

upon  him,  the  charm  of  the  royal  conversation, 
"charming,  amusing,  pleasant,  and  instructive,"  he 
sighs  for  the  day  when  he  may  return  to  the  joys 
of  familiar  talk  with  Julie  and  her  playful  lectures. 
"  Do  not  flatter  yourself,"  he  writes,  "  that  I  shall 
be  less  of  a  tease  when  I  come  home,  or  better 
behaved  at  table.  It  is  true  that  I  must  not  play 
tricks  here,  but  be  sure  that  I  shall  have  to  make 
up  for  many  arrears." 

Once  only  do  these  letters  name  Madame  du 
Deffand,  and  then  in  such  a  way  as  to  prove  that 
she  has  no  cognisance  of  this  correspondence,  and 
no  part  in  its  confidences.  "  I  will  write  to  the 
Marquise,  if  possible  by  this  post.  The  King  asks 
whether  she  is  still  alive !  You  may  imagine  how 
I  shall  congratulate  her  on  being  the  subject  of  such 
a  question.  I  will  add  one  or  two  of  His  Majesty's 
sayings.  They  should  secure  him  her  best  ap- 
proval." The  letter  follows  a  few  days  later — the 
only  one  to  her  address  during  .the  whole  three 
months  of  his  absence.  It  is  stilted,  constrained, 
and  frigidly  polite.  "You  have  allowed  me, 
Madame,  to  write  to  you  about  myself,  and  to  ask 
how  you  fare.  I  am  only  too  ready  to  avail  myself 
of  the  leave.  ...  I  will  content  myself  with  as- 
suring you  that,  despite  the  whirl  in  which  I  am 
living,  I  never  forget  the  friendship  and  gracious- 
ness  with  which  you  are  pleased  to  honour  me.  I 
like  to  believe  that  my  affectionate  attachment  to 
yourself  makes  me  in  some  part  deserving  of  them. 
As  I  know  that  nothing  wearies  you  more  than  to 
be  asked  to  write  a  letter,  I  must  content  myself 


n6          JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

with  asking  you  to  send  me  your  news  by  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse.  .  .  .  Farewell,  Madame. 
Take  care  of  your  health.  My  own  remains 
good." 

The  Marquise's  reply  to  these  reserved  and 
conventional  lines  is  couched  in  a  very  different 
strain.  Far  from  charging  Julie  with  the  task  of 
answering,  she  immediately  takes  up  her  pen.  In 
her  large  sprawling  hand,  the  hand  of  her  blindness, 
she  accepts  as  good  currency  the  phrases  in  which 
his  heart  had  no  share,  and  proposes  in  touching 
terms  a  full  reconciliation,  a  renewal  of  friendship,  a 
return  to  the  happy  days  so  suddenly  and  so  com- 
pletely passed.  This  letter — hitherto  unpublished, 
I  believe — contains  more  of  the  real  Madame  du 
Deffand  than  her  most  famous  epistles — doubtless 
a  jealous  woman,  imperious,  exacting  towards  those 
whom  she  loves,  but  generous,  faithful,  and  warm- 
hearted. "  No !  no,  sir !  I  delegate  the  giving 
you  news  of  myself  to  no  one,  still  less  will  I  reply 
to  the  most  charming  letter  that  you  have  written 
to  me  otherwise  than  with  my  own  hand.  Reading 
it,  I  saw  myself  at  La  Saint  Chapelle  twenty  years 
ago,  you  as  pleased  with  me  as  I  was  with  you. 
This  letter  indeed  recalled  the  golden  age  of  our 
friendship,  and  made  me  happy  by  reawakening  my 
tender  feelings.  Let  us  begin  there,  and  love  each 
other  as  we  used  to  do.  I  do  not  think  that  either 
of  us  can  do  better.  Believe  me  if  you  can !  .  .  . 
Farewell,  my  dear  d'Alembert.  I  am,  and  I  shall 
always  be,  unchanged  for  you.  Never  doubt  that, 
and  love  me  in  your  turn." 


JULIE'S    MISCONDUCT  117 

But  the  appeal  failed,  and  the  unanswered  letter 
contains  the  last  flicker  of  their  friendship.  The 
old  stress  returned  with  d'Alembert's  re-entry  to 
the  salon,  late  in  September.  Relations  were  more 
strained  than  ever  yet,  and  each  party  prepared  for 
the  open  warfare  which  must  come.  In  the  follow- 
ing January,  Voltaire  risks  a  discreet  question, 
astonished  at  the  Marquise's  silence  on  the  subject 
of  her  constant  visitor.  "  Do  you  still  enjoy  the 
pleasure  of  frequently  seeing  Monsieur  d'Alembert? 
Not  only  does  he  possess  wit,  but  his  wit  is  to  the 
point — a  great  matter  !  "  The  answer  was  as  curt. 
**  I  often  see  d'Alembert,  and  agree  with  you  that 
he  has  plenty  of  wits  !  "  Henceforward  Madame 
du  Deffand  ignores  his  name.  It  follows  the  name 
of  Julie  de  Lespinasse,  long  since  banished  from 
her  correspondence,  and  thus  the  storm  gathers  in 
heavy  silence. 

The  ensuing  scene  is  so  well  known,  and  has 
been  so  often  repeated  in  history  and  even  in 
novels,1  that  it  seems  almost  gratuitous  to  repeat 
it  here.  I  may,  however,  give  so  much  of  it  as 
is  needful  to  the  continuity  of  my  narrative,  in- 
sisting on  certain  details  to  which  my  predecessors 
have  not  given  proper  attention.  The  origin  of 
the  scene,  at  all  events  its  external  cause,  lies  in 
the  curious  disposition  of  her  time  affected  by 
Madame  du  Deffand — a  disposition  best  resumed 
in  her  own  words.  "  Five  hours  of  the  night  I 

1  The  most   notable   example  is  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward's  "  Lady 
Rose's  Daughter." 


n8  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

devote  to  my  own  reflections.  Four  or  five  hours 
exhaust  all  that  is  worth  reading.  Somewhere 
about  midnight  I  sleep  for  two  or  three  hours.  I 
rise  very  late,  and  my  visitors  arrive  about  six." 
A  little  later  than  the  last-named  hour,  towards 
seven,  d'Alembert  was  used  to  arrive,  returning 
to  his  glazier's  cottage  towards  nine.  Ostensibly 
he  never  varied  these  hours,  but  he  had  latterly 
contracted  a  habit  of  coming  somewhat  earlier  and 
visiting  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  in  her  own 
apartments  on  the  next  story.  These  hours  were 
the  couple's  most  delightful  time,  and  if  it  be  neces- 
sary to  prove  their  innocence  one  need  only  men- 
tion that  they  were  frequently  joined  by  a  few 
special  friends — Turgot,  Chastellux,  Marmontel. 
These  little  gatherings  presently  assumed  the 
form  of  a  regular  institution.  The  small  room 
was  the  scene  of  a  miniature  salon,  a  "  first  re- 
ception," familiar,  clandestine,  hidden  from  the 
stormy  jealousy  of  Madame  du  Deffand,  and 
doubtless  invested  with  the  particular  attractive- 
ness of  the  forbidden  and  the  mysterious.  Natur- 
ally, and  despite  all  precautions,  the  discovery 
had  to  come,  and  one's  only  wonder  must  be 
that  this  discovery  was  so  long  delayed. 

The  catastrophe  occurred  late  in  April.  Chance 
or  an  indiscretion  suddenly  revealed  the  terrible 
secret,  and  Madame  du  Deffand's  surprise  and 
rage  were  equally  unbounded.  Her  furious 
imagination  distorted  and  aggravated  the  nature 
of  the  offence.  Joining  these  gatherings  to  all 
that  has  been  indicated  above,  she  construed 


RECRIMINATIONS  119 

them  as  an  abuse  of  confidence,  an  audacious  de- 
fiance, a  plot  to  steal  away  her  friends,  and — as 
Madame  de  la  Ferte  Imbault  records — an  attempt 
to  raise  "  altar  against  altar,"  and  this  at  her 
expense  and  in  her  own  house.  She  demanded 
instant  explanations  from  Julie,  and  the  interview 
followed  the  course  only  too  usual  in  such  cases. 
Sarcasm  gave  place  to  bitter  words,  and  bitter 
words  to  those  which  are  never  forgiven.  Con- 
temporary memoirs,  and  certain  passages  in  a 
letter  of  the  elder  woman,  afford  a  sufficiently 
clear  view  of  the  quarrel.  The  entire  past  leapt 
to  their  tongues,  the  one  dwelling  on  benefits 
bestowed  and  her  bounties,  and  on  the  other's 
ingratitude.  Perfidy  and  treason  were  words  soon 
uttered,  and  the  classical  simile  of  the  snake  which 
stings  the  bosom  wherein  it  was  warmed.  Julie's 
retort  assumed  the  dimensions  of  an  attack.  How 
was  it  possible  for  her  to  love  one  who,  she  has 
long  felt,  "detests  and  abhors"  her,  who  has  not 
ceased  to  "  crush "  her  under  the  heel  of  her 
despotism,  to  chafe  her  feelings,  deluge  her — 
and  with  what  guileful  wisdom ! — with  reproaches 
and  recriminations.  The  immense  flood  of  sup- 
pressed feeling,  silently  gathered  these  many  years, 
burst  its  banks  and  flooded  the  world  like  a  molten 
stream. 

An  outburst  of  the  kind  made  further  com- 
panionship impossible.  Both  felt  this,  and  the 
final  separation  was  the  result  of  mutual  desire. 
Marmontel  asserts  that  "  it  was  sudden,"  but 
the  first  day's  rupture  does  not  seem  to  have 


120          JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

been  final,  certainly  not  irrevocable.  The  point 
from  which  there  was  no  turning  back  arrived 
when  Julie  wrote  to  the  Marquise  a  few  days 
later :  "  You  have  set  a  date,  Madame,  for  me 
to  have  the  honour  of  seeing  you.  This  date 
seems  very  distant,  and  I  shall  be  glad  if  you 
are  able  to  bring  it  nearer.  I  desire  nothing 
more  than  to  be  deserving  of  your  kindness.  Be 
kind  to  me,  and  give  me  the  dearest  proof  of 
that  kindness  by  permitting  me  to  personally  re- 
peat my  assurance  that  my  respect  and  affection 
for  you  will  continue  as  long  as  my  life."  Lines 
so  full  of  feeling,  affectionate,  almost  repentant, 
would  have  touched  Madame  du  Deffand's  heart 
at  any  other  time.  She  proved  implacable  now 
because  her  discovery  of  the  "crime"  had  been 
followed  by  an  incident  which  vastly  increased 
its  enormity  in  her  eyes.  In  the  first  heat  of 
her  passion,  she  fell  upon  the  unfortunate  idea 
of  giving  d'Alembert  his  choice.  Now,  once  and 
for  all,  he  must  choose  between  Julie  and  her- 
self. There  must  be  no  more  dallying  be- 
tween them.  He  found  it  unnecessary  to  weigh 
the  alternatives.  Without  a  moment's  hesitation, 
the  philosopher  made  his  farewell  to  the  house 
in  which  he  had  been  held  the  oracle,  and  the 
salon  of  Saint  Joseph's  henceforth  mourned  its 
most  constant  member.  That  she  might  have 
foreseen  the  decision  in  no  way  softened  the 
sting  of  it  to  the  Marquise.  It  was  a  blow  to 
which  she  never  became  reconciled,  which  she 
never  pardoned,  and  never  forgave  to  the  girl 


FINAL    RUPTURE  121 

in  whom  she  saw  the  real  cause  of  it.  "  With- 
out her  I  should  have  kept  d' Alembert !  "  she 
cried,  long  years  afterwards,  thus  laying  bare  in 
one  moment  the  cause  of  their  quarrel  and  the 
source  of  her  undying  hostility. 

Mademoiselle  Lespinasse  could  not  have  held 
out  her  olive-branch  at  a  more  unfortunate  moment 
than  the  morrow  of  such  a  scene.  "  I  cannot  con- 
sent to  receive  you  so  soon,  Mademoiselle.  The 
words  which  passed  between  us,  and  determined 
our  separation,  are  still  a  far  too  lively  memory. 
I  cannot  believe  that  the  motives  behind  your 
desire  for  an  interview  are  friendly.  .  .  .  What 
is  it  that  you  really  want  of  me  to-day?  What 
service  can  I  do  you  ?  My  presence  could  not 
please  you.  It  could  only  recall  the  beginning 
of  your  acquaintance  with  me,  and  the  years  that 
followed  it — things  only  fit  for  oblivion.  Still,  if 
you  can  after  all  look  back  with  pleasure,  and 
if  the  remembrance  of  old  days  can  provoke  some 
feeling  of  remorse,  I  by  no  means  pride  myself 
on  an  austere  and  inflexible  obduracy.  I  am 
fairly  well  able  to  recognise  truth.  Sincere  re- 
pentance may  touch  me,  and  so  revive  the  tender 
feelings  and  the  liking  which  I  once  bore  you. 
But,  until  that  time  comes,  Mademoiselle,  we  can 
remain  as  we  are,  and  you  must  be  content  with 
my  good  wishes  for  your  welfare." 

All  thought  of  a  reconciliation  naturally  vanished 
in  face  of  this  dry  and  haughty  refusal.  Touched 
in  the  quickest  part  of  her  pride,  Julie  made  no 
further  advances.  A  wall  of  ice  was  built  up  be- 


122  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

tween  the  two  women,  who  henceforth  became 
more  strangers  to  each  other  than  if  they  had 
never  been  acquainted.  But  silence  and  indiffer- 
ence are  not  synonymous  terms.  In  each  of 
these  two  fiery  hearts  tenderness  departed  only 
to  let  in  hate,  and  hate  of  that  bitter  sort  which 
is  no  whit  less  tenacious  and  deep  because  it 
seldom  finds  vent  in  words.  But  if  the  feelings 
of  both  parties  were  akin,  it  is  fair  to  remember 
that  Madame  du  Deffand  alone  permitted  hers  to 
lead  to  action.  Her  first  pretension  was  the  claim 
to  forbid  her  friends,  even  her  mere  acquaintance, 
to  have  any  dealings  with  the  girl,  who,  she  pro- 
tested, had  "odiously  misled  and  betrayed  her," 
and  in  this  way  to  isolate  her.  D'Alembert's 
action,  and  her  fear  lest  others  should  follow  his 
example,  soon  led  to  a  change  of  tactics.  She 
wisely  beat  a  retreat,  for  not  one  member  of  her 
salon  failed  more  or  less  openly  to  side  with 
the  youngest,  the  poorest,  and  the  most  lonely. 
Renault,  d'Usse,  Chastellux,  Turgot,  Countess  de 
BoufBers,  the  Duchesse  de  Chatillon,  the  Marechale 
de  Luxembourg,  and  a  host  of  less  important 
names,  seemed  to  be  vying  with  each  other  as 
to  which  should  first  offer  their  sympathy,  and 
promise  their  continued  interest.  The  Marquise 
found  critics  even  within  her  own  family.  With 
the  exceptions  of  the  Canon  of  La  Sainte  Chapelle, 
too  enamoured  of  his  peace  to  take  part  in  "  such 
a  pother,"  and  Madame  d'Aulan,  "whose  one  hope 
was  to  become  her  sister's  heir,"  most  of  the  Vichys 
— Gaspard,  his  wife,  all  their  children — declared  for 


WRATH   OF   THE    MARQUISE      123 

Julie.  Abel,  in  the  heat  of  his  youth,  declared 
himself  in  such  terms  that  the  Marquise  com- 
plained loudly  to  his  father  and  never  forgave 
him.  "Your  son,"  she  writes  to  Gaspard,  when 
long  afterwards  Abel  came  to  Paris,  "  will  hardly 
be  pleased  with  me.  But  I  understand  that  he 
has  intimacies  of  a  kind  which  do  not  consort 
with  those  that  I  had  in  view  for  him.  How- 
ever, a  man  is  at  liberty  to  suit  his  own  tastes 
and  interest." 

Thus  generally  blamed,  and  in  constant  fear 
of  further  defections,  the  Marquise  had  perforce 
to  shut  her  eyes  ;  but  she  was  bitterly  undeceived — 
and  her  feelings  were  long  raw.  She  continued 
to  receive  those  whom  her  heart  of  hearts  held 
renegades,  but  passage  after  passage  in  her  letters 
shows  that  she  no  longer  either  trusted  or  held 
them  in  affection.  Ten  years  afterwards,  Walpole, 
her  new  favourite  and  the  man  who  has  filled  the 
place  of  d'Alembert,  thinks  it  his  duty  to  press 
Con  way  to  abstain  from  all  relations  with  Julie. 
"  Nothing  in  the  world  would  so  annoy  my  old 
friend,  not  that  she  would  ever  tell  you  so  in 
words.  I  must  confess  that  I,  also,  should  not 
relish  it.  ...  I  let  myself  speak  thus  because  the 
Marquise  has  enemies  bitter  enough  to  be  at  the 
pains  of  introducing  all  Englishmen  to  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse."  The  Marquise's  animosity  spanned 
the  breach  of  death  itself.  Ten  years  after  the 
burial  of  her  whom  she  had  called  the  "Muse  of 
the  Encyclopaedia,"  she  received  from  Madame 
BoufHers  a  letter,  "  very  well  written,  very  touch- 


i24          JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

ing,"  and  overflowing  with  tenderness.  "  I  was 
allowing  myself  to  be  stirred,"  she  says,  "but  I 
remembered  her  connection  with  the  late  deceased, 
and  my  heart  was  shut." 

Her  pain  is  her  excuse  for  this  fierce  hate — a 
pain  the  deeper  since  her  pride  endeavours  to  hide 
it.  But  an  irreplaceable  something  has  passed  out 
of  her  miserable  life,  and  the  ache  of  it  refuses  to 
be  hidden.  She  was  so  overwhelmed  at  first  that 
for  once  her  quick  pen  refused  to  run.  She  excuses 
delay  in  replying  to  Voltaire  by  "the  domestic 
trouble  and  embarrassment  that  have  overwhelmed 
my  feeble  spirit.  I  was  fain  to  wait  for  a  little  more 
calmness  in  order  to  write  to  you."  "  You  would 
have  me  share  my  thoughts  with  you,"  she  writes 
a  few  lines  later.  "  Sir,  what  is  this  you  ask  ?  My 
thoughts  are  confined  to  one,  a  sad  one — that  life, 
truly  estimated,  is  capable  of  but  one  grand  mis- 
fortune— itself!  .  .  .  You  see  how  sick  is  my  heart, 
and  how  ill  I  choose  my  times  for  this  letter.  But, 
my  friend,  console  me !  Exorcise  the  black  spirits 
which  hem  me  in !,"  A  fortnight  later  the  key  re- 
mains unaltered.  "  All  the  ills  of  the  flesh,  painful 
and  heavy  as  they  are,  sadden  and  diminish  our 
souls  less  than  this  traffic  and  conversation  with 
our  fellows."  Outwardly,  at  all  events,  she  re- 
covers, resumes  her  suppers  and  receptions,  the 
round  of  a  worldly  life.  But  the  savour  and  desire 
are  gone  from  them.  She  has  no  illusions  on  the 
score  of  those  with  whom  she  now  allies  herself. 
"  I  have  nothing  that  ties  me  to  this  country  now, 
and  I  would  say  of  the  society  around  me  what 


HER    TEMPER  125 

La  Rochefoucauld  says  of  the  Court :  '  It  gives 
us  no  pleasure,  but  it  prevents  our  finding  pleasure 
elsewhere' "  "  Twelve  people  were  here  yester- 
day," is  her  plaint  four  years  later,  "  and  I  admired 
the  different  kinds  and  degrees  of  futility.  We 
were  all  perfect  fools,  but  each  in  his  kind.  All 
shared  a  want  of  intelligence ;  we  were  all  singu- 
larly wearisome.  All  twelve  departed  at  one,  but 
none  left  a  regret  behind."  And  lastly,  when  she 
balances  her  life  towards  the  end,  "  I  cannot  claim 
to  have  wanted  for  the  number  of  my  acquaintance, 
but  Ponte-de-Veyle  is  my  only  friend,  and  he  bores 
me  to  death  three-quarters  of  the  time." 

Horace  Walpole,  we  may  here  note,  is  in  error 
when  he  reproaches  Madame  du  Deffand  for  resem- 
bling the  Englishman  who,  having  lost  a  friend,  at 
once  resorted  to  the  St.  James's  Coffee-house  to 
choose  a  successor.  The  truth  is  that,  from  the 
day  of  her  rupture  with  Julie  and  d'Alembert — 
always  excepting  this  same  Walpole,  nearly  always 
absent,  and  whose  egoistical  selfishness  constantly 
subjects  her  to  pitiless  rebuffs — the  Marquise  pos- 
sessed no  real  friend.  Her  guests  are  indifferent 
to  her,  persons  attracted  by  her  reputation  or 
amused  by  her  repartees,  no  more  her  friends  than 
she  is  theirs.  Yet  others  are  mere  base  parasites, 
"who  eat  her  suppers,  wink  at  each  other,"  and 
pass  jests  at  her  expense  under  the  safe  cover  of 
her  blindness.  Her  one  really  trusted  companion 
is  the  hired  successor  to  Julie,  Mademoiselle 
Sanadon,  la  Sanadona,  as  she  calls  her,  a  devoted 
and  always  attentive  old  maid,  but  of  limited  intel- 


126  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

ligence  and  a  wearisome  babbler.  "  She  is  always 
coming  to  find  me,"  complains  her  mistress,  "  ima- 
gining that  I  cannot  dispense  with  her  services, 
and  she  is  right,  for  she  is  to  me  what  a  stick  is 
to  other  old  women." 

The  salon  of  Saint  Joseph's  is  little  more  than 
a  desert,  a  place  of  comings  and  goings,  ever 
alive  with  murmured  speech.  Its  mistress  knows 
this  only  too  well,  and  her  complaint  to  Voltaire 
does  not  seek  to  hide  it.  "  You  cannot  know,  until 
it  has  befallen  you,  what  like  is  this  estate  of  one 
who  has  had  friends,  then  lost  them  irreparably. 
Give  to  one  in  this  case  some  trifle  of  taste,  a  little 
discernment  and  great  love  of  the  truth  ;  put  such  a 
one  in  the  midst  of  Paris  or  Pekin,  or  any  place 
you  will,  blind  her,  and  I  assure  you  that  it  were 
well  for  her  had  she  never  been  born." 

For  all  these  miseries  of  her  latter  years,  for  all 
the  disappointments,  all  the  desertions  that  fall  to 
her,  Julie  de  Lespinasse  is  blamed  by  the  Mar- 
quise. Turgot  enters  the  Ministry.  She  at  once 
cries  out,  "  Fourteen  or  fifteen  years  ago  he  was 
here  daily.  The  Lespinasse  separated  us,  as  she 
has  cut  me  off  from  all  the  Encyclopaedists."  The 
mere  thought  of  seeing  Julie  is  sufficient  to  make 
her  furious.  Even  Walpole,  failing  to  catch  a 
remark,  and  making  an  unfortunate  reply,  does 
not  escape.  "  I  cannot  comprehend,"  she  declares 
angrily,  "how  you  failed  to  see  that  I  was  not 
talking  seriously.  I  wouldn't  owe  her  my  escape 
from  the  hangman !  I  will  lose  no  time  in  clearing 
your  head  of  so  odious  an  idea."  And  so,  when 


EMANCIPATION    OF   JULIE        127 

some  one  brings  the  news  of  the  untimely  death  of 
the  woman  whom  she  had  once  held  for  little  less 
than  her  daughter,  "  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse," 
she  remarks,  "died  at  two  o'clock  last  night.  Once, 
that  would  have  meant  something  to  me.  The 
information  has  no  interest  to-day."  Next  day, 
speaking  with  one  of  her  feminine  friends,  she 
adds  this  cruel  raillery  to  her  epitaph  :  "If  she 
is  in  Paradise,  the  Holy  Virgin  will  need  to  keep 
her  eyes  open,  or  she  will  find  herself  lost  to  the 
love  of  the  Eternal!" 

The  spectacle  of  Madame  du  Deffand  closing 
her  days  in  hatred  and  despair  is  a  saddening  sight, 
from  which  we  may  well  turn  to  the  history  of 
her  whilom  friend,  now  her  enemy,  her  rival  to  be, 
for  the  exaltation  of  the  one  as  the  other  waned 
was  the  twofold  result  of  their  quarrel.  Free  of 
constraint  and  at  liberty  to  dwell  in  the  full  light 
after  dwelling  in  the  shadows,  Julie  de  Lespinasse 
attained  her  full  stature.  Her  nature,  hitherto 
intentionally  repressed,  now  asserts  its  claims  to 
develop,  until  a  wonder  of  the  times  is  found  in 
the  issue  from  a  little  provincial,  and,  as  it  were, 
between  an  evening  and  the  morning,  of  a  Queen 
of  Paris.  And  this  transformation  is  the  magical 
fruit  of  her  irresistible  personal  charm,  accomplished 
by  the  aid  of  no  family  name,  no  silent  help,  no 
lavish  expenditure!  The  ten  years  following  the 
Saint  Joseph  period  of  her  life  are  probably  those 
in  which  Julie  was  happiest.  They  certainly  saw 
her  her  most  triumphant,  most  brilliant  self. 


CHAPTER   V 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  opens  house  in  the  Rue  Saint  Dominique — Her 
lodging — Her  financial1  resources — Attacked  by  small-pox — d'Alembert 
contracts  the  disease — He  enters  Julie's  house — Their  common  life — Period 
of  calm  and  happiness — Their  intimacy  with  Madame  Geoffrin— Conse- 
quent gain  to  Julie — Mademoiselle  de  I^espinasse  forms  the  project  of  a 
salon — Her  immediate  success,  and  marvellous  tact  in  the  part — Special 
character  of  the  salon  of  Rue  Saint  Dominique — Her  influence  with  her 
friends — Influence  of  the  new  circle  on  the  literary  world  and  the 
Academy. 

ONE  may  permissibly  read  a  suggestion  of  defiance 
into  the  situation  which  Mademoiselle  de  Lespin- 
asse selected  for  the  home  of  her  rising  fame, 
her  "  shop  of  bright  wits,"  as  a  contemporary  called 
it,  on  the  morrow  of  her  quarrel  with  the  Marquise 
du  Deffand.  The  choice  was  a  little  house  at  the 
corner  of  the  Rue  de  Belle-Chasse,  opposite  the 
convent  of  the  same  name  in  the  same  Rue  Saint 
Dominique,  and  not  a  hundred  yards  from  the 
Convent  of  Saint  Joseph.  One  Messager,  a  "  Paris 
master-joiner,"  was  her  landlord,  and  in  his  modest 
house  Julie  established  herself  almost  opposite  the 
windows  of  her  sometime  patron.  Nine  hundred 
and  fifty  livres,  with  "  further  forty-two  livres  ten 
sols  as  her  share  of  the  porter's  wage,"  was  no 
immense  price  for  the  second  and  third  stories,  but 
was  a  severe  charge  on  her  budget.  The  inventory 
of  her  effects  at  decease,  and  certain  unpublished 
documents  shown  me  by  Monsieur  Gaston  Boissier, 
furnish  us  with  a  sufficiently  clear  idea  of  her 

138 


JULIE'S    INCOME  129 

resources.  Beyond  the  small  inheritance  derived 
from  her  mother,  Julie  was  at  this  time  the  recipient 
of  a  pension  of  six  hundred  and  ninety-two  livres 
from  the  Duke  of  Orleans — granted  her  on  July 
1 6,  1754,  doubtless  through  the  mediation  of 
Madame  du  Deffand — and  two  other  similar  "life 
pensions"  of  uncertain  origin,  worth  six  hundred 
and  two  thousand  livres  respectively.  These  last 
pensions  were  granted  her  under  date  May  26, 
1758,  and  October  6,  1763.  Monsieur  Gaston 
Boissier's  papers  say  that  these  were  charged  on 
"the  King's  revenues,"  a  statement  confirming  its 
counterpart  in  the  Md moires  de  Marmontel,  where 
a  part  of  the  revenues  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespin- 
asse  are  said  to  be  derived  from  Louis  XV.'s 
treasury,  and  to  have  been  secured  for  her  on  the 
personal  application  of  the  Due  de  Choiseul.  She 
was  thus  possessed  of  three  thousand  five  hundred 
and  ninety-two  livres,  enough  to  support  her  with 
reasonable  care,  but  quite  insufficient  to  allow  of 
"  the  detraction  of  a  single  penny "  towards  the 
expenses  of  setting  up  house. 

Her  friends  were  fortunately  at  hand.  H6nault, 
Turgot,  d'Uss6,  and  Madame  de  Chatillon  allied 
themselves  to  provide  for  her  initial  needs.  The 
Marechale  de  Luxembourg  presented  her  with  a 
complete  suite  of  furniture.  Finally,  d'Alembert 
induced  Madame  Geoffrin  to  do  more  than  all  the 
rest  together.  Far  from  being  Julie's  friend,  she 
knew  her  by  reputation  only,  but  whether  moved 
by  sincere  pity  for  the  distress  of  which  she  heard, 
or  from  a  desire  to  annoy  her  enemy  and  "pet 

i 


130          JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

aversion,"  Madame  du  Deffand,  she  now  committed 
one  of  those  actions  upon  the  grand  scale  that  were 
dear  to  her  twin  passions,  ostentation  and  kind- 
liness. Having  chosen  her  three  finest  Van  Loos, 
she  sold  them  to  the  Empress  of  Russia  for  the 
sum  of  ten  thousand  crowns.  Part  of  this  com- 
pleted Julie's  installation  ;  the  remainder  her  friend 
invested  in  the  purchase  of  an  annuity  of  two 
thousand  livres  from  Joseph  de  la  Borde,  richest 
of  "  Bankers  to  His  Majesty."  This  generous 
gift  Madame  Geoffrin  shortly  supplemented  with 
a  further  allowance  of  a  thousand  crowns,  but  so 
secretly  that  Madame  de  la  Ferte  Imbault,  her 
own  daughter,  had  never  heard  of  it  until  she 
was  dead,  when  the  entry  was  found  in  her 
mother's  accounts. 

Monsieur  de  Vaines  and  another  unknown 
donor  were  responsible  for  yet  further  help, 
three  thousand  livres  of  allowance ;  thanks  to 
which  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  was  placed  in 
the  enjoyment  of  no  less  a  total  than  almost  eight 
thousand  five  hundred  livres1  a  year.  If  this  was 
not  wealth,  it  was  a  competence,  and  her  style 
of  living  was  consequently  quite  comfortable.  She 
employed  four  servants — a  housemaid,  a  house- 
keeper, a  cook,  and  a  ladies- maid.  Her  rooms  were 
comfortably  and  conveniently  furnished  without 
being  luxurious.  On  the  second  story,  a  minute 
hall  opened  into  the  little  drawing-room,  in  which 
the  woodwork  was  white  and  the  curtains  were 
of  crimson  silk.  This  room  was  a  trifle  crowded 
1  Say  £400  to  £420. 


SHE   CONTRACTS   SMALL-POX      131 

by  its  array  of  armchairs,  stools,  ottomans,  and 
low  seats,  soft  and  admirably  adapted  for  intimate 
conversations.  Most  of  the  furniture  proper  was 
of  rosewood,  but  "a  little  cabinet  of  cherry-wood," 
a  roll  desk,  a  winding-wheel  for  wool,  a  marble 
bust  of  Voltaire  and  another  of  d'Alembert  were 
scattered  about.  Masson  was  responsible  for  the 
figure  on  the  clock  above  the  chimney-place. 
Close  to  this  room,  and  with  windows  opening 
upon  the  street,  was  the  bedroom.  It  also  was 
upholstered  in  crimson  silk,  and  contained  a  deep 
recess  in  which  a  "  bedspread  d  Fimperiale"  veiled 
a  bed  "four-foot  across,"  and  enclosed  by  a  variety 
of  curtains.  A  dressing-room  and  a  servants'  room 
filled  the  remainder  of  this  story ;  that  above  it 
contained  the  kitchen,  the  housemaid's  quarters, 
and  several  "lumber-rooms"  not  otherwise  used 
at  first.  Such  is  a  cursory  view  of  the  home  in 
which  Julie  was  now  to  pass  twelve  years,  the 
last  of  her  life. 

The  installation  was,  however,  destined  to  end 
with  an  annoying  incident,  for  Julie  was  scarcely 
settled-in  before  she  fell  ill,  and  was  presently 
announced  to  be  suffering  from  small-pox.  She 
had  a  particular  horror  of  this  illness,  but  had  re- 
fused to  undergo  inoculation,  now  becoming  a  fairly 
general  practice,  owing  to  a  mistaken  idea  that  a 
childish  ailment  had  been  worse  than  it  was,  and 
had  so  made  her  immune.  "  I  shall  never,"  she 
afterwards  wrote,  "be  consoled  for  having  imagined 
that  that  was  the  small-pox.  Heavens,  what  pains 
and  woes  the  trouble  would  have  spared  me ! " 


132  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Her  attack  was  severe,  and  her  life  in  danger  at 
one  time.  "Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  is  danger- 
ously ill  of  the  small-pox,"  Hume  wrote  to  Madame 
Boufflers,  "and  I  am  glad  to  see  that  d'Alembert 
has  come  out  of  his  philosophy  at  such  a  moment." 
The  philosopher's  devotion  proved  little  less  than 
heroic,  indeed.  Caring  nothing  for  his  own  danger 
or  fatigue,  he  watched  by  her  bed  day  in  and  day 
out,  leaving  his  post  only  to  snatch  a  few  hours' 
sleep  in  his  distant  lodgings.  Her  recovery,  largely 
due  to  his  care,  was  very  slow,  and  her  health 
suffered  from  the  consequences  for  years.  These 
showed  themselves  in  extreme  feebleness  and 
terrible  neuralgia.  Worse  than  all,  her  power  of 
sight — an  hereditary  weakness  of  the  Vichys — was 
seriously  altered,  and  constant  attacks  of  ophthalmia 
afterwards  compelled  her  to  have  frequent  need  of 
a  secretary.  Her  face  was  disastrously  marked, 
notwithstanding  d'Alembert's  gallant  assertion  to 
Hume.  "  The  small-pox  has  clearly  left  its  mark, 
but  it  has  not  disfigured  her  in  the  least."  With  all 
deference  to  this  opinion,  her  once  pleasant  features 
were  irremediably  spoiled,  their  lines  coarsened  and 
their  complexion  lost.  Several  passages  in  her 
letters  admit  this,  and  bravely  as  she  faced  her 
misfortunes  she  was  too  much  the  woman  not  to 
suffer  acutely  from  a  blow  of  the  kind. 

Julie  was  hardly  cured  before  d'Alembert  fell 
ill  in  turn.  So  much  anxiety  and  emotion,  and  so 
many  sleepless  nights,  affected  his  constitution  at 
once.  "  My  stomach  could  not  play  me  more  tricks 
if  I  asked  it  to  digest  all  the  manufactures  and  all 


D'ALEMBERT   RECOVERS          133 

the  talk  in  France ! "  His  Spartan  habits  and 
notorious  abstemiousness  seemed  only  to  aggravate 
the  evil,  until  he  fell  into  a  fever  in  the  spring. 
This  was  not  grave  at  the  outset,  but  presently 
increased  until  his  doctor,  Bouvard,  during  an 
entire  week,  declined  to  prophesy  the  consequences. 
He  recovered,  however,  to  write  to  Voltaire  :  "  I 
thought  of  applying  for  my  pension  to  the  Eternal. 
He  certainly  would  not  have  treated  me  worse  than 
does  Versailles.  This  fever  having  set  my  feet  in 
Charon's  barque,  I  am  not  sure  that  I  should  regret 
the  passage  of  his  ferry.  But,  whether  for  good 
or  ill,  I  did  not  long  have  the  chance.  .  .  .  Either 
the  Devil,  who  is  envious  of  us  both,  is  a  bungler, 
or  perhaps  he  consoles  himself  with  the  reflection 
that  a  pleasure  deferred  is  not  lost."  A  period 
of  languor  and  utter  prostration  followed  this 
dangerous  time,  effects  attributed  by  Bouvard  to 
the  stifling  and  unhealthy  lodging  to  which  the 
philosopher  clung  out  of  gratitude  to  his  foster- 
mother.  "  A  little  room,"  Marmontel  calls  it,  "  ill- 
lit,  ill-aired,  with  a  very  narrow  bed  like  a  coffin." 
"  A  hole  in  which  I  could  not  breathe,"  its  owner 
afterwards  confessed.  No  sooner  did  convalescence 
permit  the  thought  of  removal,  than  the  doctor 
ordered  a  less  insanitary  abode.  A  generous  friend, 
the  financier  Watelet,  offered  his  house  near  the 
Temple,  and  with  his  acceptance  of  this  offer  the 
philosopher  made  his  first  escape  from  the  petticoats 
of  his  foster-mother.  "  Oh  wondrous  day  ! "  cried 
Duclos  at  this  news.  "  D'Alembert  is  weaned ! " 
We  know  Julie  well  enough  to  need  no  in- 


i34  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

sistence  upon  her  conduct  in  the  matter  of  this 
illness.  Taking  her  place  at  the  bedside  in  turn, 
she  repaid  "like  a  devoted  sister"  all  the  care 
which  he  had  recently  expended  on  herself.  "  She 
established  herself  as  his  nurse  in  defiance  of  all 
that  might  be  said  or  thought,"  Marmontel  says, 
"  and  no  one  either  thought  or  whispered  anything 
but  good  of  it."  But  this  was  by  no  means  all. 
Having  saved  his  life,  Julie  had  no  wish  that  they 
should  be  separated  anew.  The  upper  of  her  two 
stories  contained  several  unused  rooms,  simple 
apartments  and  of  small  size,  but  none  the  less 
better  lighted  and  more  healthy  than  the  miserable 
"hole"  in  which  d'Alembert  had  hitherto  been 
content  to  dwell.  He,  certainly,  could  feel  no 
aversion  from  her  affectionate  suggestion  that  she 
should  sublet  these  rooms  for  a  moderate  rental. 
They  would  take  their  meals  together,  and  the 
most  exacting  friendship  could  ask  no  more  constant 
comradeship.  He  accepted,  telling  his  friends  that 
the  move  was  made  in  deference  to  his  doctor's 
advice.  "  I  feel  that  plenty  of  air  is  essential  to 
my  health,  and  I  am  moving  to  an  apartment  where 
I  can  find  this."  But  his  sincerity  declines  this 
pandering  to  the  conventions  when  he  confesses  to 
himself :  "  Poor  foster-mother,  fonder  of  me  than 
your  own  children,  I  have  left  you  at  the  call  of  a 
more  tender  emotion."  The  arrangement  was  soon 
put  in  force,  and  the  autumn  of  1765  found  d'Alem- 
bert installed  in  the  joiner's  house  in  Rue  Saint 
Dominique,  and  sharing  the  existence  of  her  who 
had  alone  possessed  his  heart  for  the  past  decade. 


PARIS   GOSSIPS  135 

Public  opinion  apart,  intercourse  of  this  almost 
conjugal  kind  was  clearly  dangerous  for  a  woman 
still  young  and  naturally  passionate.  Yet  the  same 
Julie  who  was  presently  to  become  so  careful  of  the 
gossips  seems  never  to  have  had  a  thought  on  the 
score  of  this  audacity.  "  Nothing,"  she  asserts 
with  perfect  self-possession,  "matters  when  one  is 
thirty  and,  in  the  common  tongue,  pitted."  These 
probably  are  no  real  reasons.  Her  calmness  is  no 
doubt  due  rather  to  the  consciousness  that  her  heart 
is  safe,  and  her  knowledge  of  the  general  belief  in 
d'Alembert's  perfect  honour.  "  She  finished  by 
living  with  him,"  Rousseau  maliciously  writes,  "that 
is,  with  honourable  intentions,  which  cannot  possibly 


Whatever  the  particular  case,  or  the  general 
laxity  of  current  opinion,  we  can  scarcely  believe 
that  this  strange  situation  did  not  provoke  com- 
ment at  the  outset,  in  any  case.  When,  on  his 
arrival  in  Paris  at  about  this  time,  Hume's  British 
simplicity  writes  what  follows,  he  probably  does  no 
more  than  echo  the  general  whisper :  "  I  have  been 
to  call  upon  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  d'Alem- 
bert's mistress,  and  really  one  of  the  most  intelli- 
gent women  in  Paris."  Julie  seems  untouched  by 
such  whispers,  but  her  friend  is,  on  the  contrary, 
unduly  annoyed  by  them.  His  temper  is  short  in 
this  part  of  the  fearful  lover  and  hopeless  aspirant, 
and  he  thrusts  viciously  at  a  harmless  gibe  from 
Voltaire.  "  '  Stay  in  Paris,  if  I  am  in  love,'  you 
write.  Why  on  earth  do  you  suggest  that  I  am 
in  love  ?  I  have  neither  the  joy  nor  the  misfortune 


136  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

of  finding  myself  in  such  a  condition,  and,  all  else 
apart,  I  can  assure  you  that  my  stomach  is  far 
too  feeble  to  require  any  further  stimulant  than  its 
daily  dinner."  His  annoyance  at  once  fixes  upon 
Madame  du  Deffand  as  the  real  offender,  and  this 
without  further  proof  or  motive  than  his  anger  with 
her.  "  It  is  quite  easy  to  see  who  suggested  this 
impertinence,  and  why ;  not  that  I  do  not  prefer  to 
be  libellously  called  lovelorn  rather  than  attacked 
upon  the  other  grounds  of  which  certain  people  are 
quite  capable.  I  was  to  be  made  to  appear  ridi- 
culous, but  ridicule  of  the  kind  is  sorry  stuff."  The 
papers  earn  a  like  denial  and  like  indignation 
when  they  presently  dilate  on  a  possible  marriage. 
"Good  heavens,  I  with  a  wife  and  children!  My 
wife-to-be  is  certainly  a  respectable  person,  and 
one  whose  charm  and  sweetness  would  make  any 
man  happy,  but  she  deserves  a  better  settlement 
in  life  than  any  I  can  afford  her,  and  the  tie  be- 
tween us  is  neither  love  nor  marriage,  but  mutual 
esteem  and  a  very  charming  friendship.  We  live 
in  one  house,  but  so  do  two  others,  and  this  is  the 
whole  basis  of  all  the  gossip."  Here  follows  a  fresh 
diatribe  against  the  unfortunate  Marquise.  "  I 
have  no  doubt  that  Madame  du  Deffand  is  at  the 
bottom  of  the  scandal.  .  .  .  She  knows  perfectly 
well  that  there  is  no  question  of  my  getting  married, 
but  she  wants  to  pretend  that  there  is  a  question  of  a 
very  different  kind.  Infamous  old  cats  like  her 
cannot  believe  in  a  woman's  virtue.  Happily,  all 
the  world  knows  her,  and  its  belief  in  her  is  equal 
to  her  deserts." 


JULIE    AND    D'ALEMBERT         137 

The  philosopher  wasted  his  time  in  losing  his 
temper.  Far  more  effective  than  his  angry  denials 
was  the  tranquil  self-assurance  of  Julie's  attitude. 
Her  frank  and  simple  existence,  lived  in  the  sight 
of  all,  and  making  no  attempt  at  dissembling,  swept 
away  suspicions  and  malice,  closed  the  mouth  of 
slander,  and  converted  the  most  obstinate.  More 
quickly  than  she  could  possibly  have  hoped,  her 
alliance  with  d'Alembert  was  universally  accepted, 
without  a  reserve  and  without  an  implication.  The 
most  esteemed  and  most  irreproachable  women, 
Madame  Necker  and  Madame  Geoffrin  at  their 
head,  made  it  a  point  of  honour  to  proclaim  the 
purely  platonic  nature  of  a  connection  which  they 
endorsed  by  act  and  word.  "Naples,"  Galiani 
writes  to  his  friend  the  Marquis  Tanucci,  "  would 
proclaim  that  they  are  secretly  married.  Here, 
no  one  thinks  of  so  needless  an  assertion.  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  enjoys  her  own  existence, 
loved  and  esteemed  by  all,  and  with  the  best  society 
in  Paris  crowding  round  her  door."  Marmontel 
writes  in  the  same  key.  "Nothing  could  be  more 
innocent  than  their  intimacy,  and  it  was  respected 
for  what  it  was.  Even  ill-nature  held  its  tongue, 
and  so  far  from  finding  her  repute  endangered, 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  only  became  more 
honourably  and  more  completely  respected." 

This  intimacy  was  indeed  close  and  familiar. 
The  friendliest  husband  and  wife  were  never  more 
one  in  counsel  or  act.  All  Julie's  interests,  even 
the  most  personal,  are  watched  over  by  d'Alembert 
and  are  the  object  of  his  jealous  devotion.  Her 


i38  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

dividends  are  collected  by  him ;  he  invests  her 
savings.  For  several  years,  at  all  events,  their  calls 
are  paid  in  company,  and  no  host  dreams  of  inviting 
the  one  without  the  other.  In  her  only  too  frequent 
attacks  of  ophthalmia  he  acts  as  her  secretary. 
Then,  be  her  letters  to  her  dearest  friend  or  dictated 
from  her  bed,  her  bath  even,  the  writing  is  that  of 
this  sure  confidant.  "  This  Tuesday,  from  my  bath, 
in  the  which  I  am  ..."  opens  a  letter  to  Condorcet. 
Such  pages,  composed  between  the  pair,  often 
convey  the  impression  of  a  dialogue,  each  address- 
ing their  interlocutor  in  turn.  "  My  secretary 
never  knows  what  he  is  saying  or  doing  (this  is 
very  foolish,  the  secretary  thinks !),  and  so  you 
must  not  wonder  that  he  takes  July  for  August. 
(The  secretary  replies,  that  August  was  the  word 
dictated,  and  not  July,  and  that  he  takes  down 
what  is  said  to  him.)"  But  this  collaboration 
often  assumes  a  more  serious  form,  and  embarks 
on  more  important  works.  D'Alembert's  latest 
biographer  assures  us  that  "the  influence  of 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  is  almost  continu- 
ously visible  from  the  date  of  their  alliance.  He 
loved  to  have  her  help  in  his  work,  and  thus  his 
ancient  mistress,  geometry,  can  now  claim  no  more 
than  occasional  hours,  while  he  disposes  himself  for 
the  lighter  labours  in  which  his  companion  can 
follow  him.  Julie's  hand  is  constantly  mingled 
with  his  own  in  his  manuscripts,  so  that  one  should 
rather  call  them  their  manuscripts.  Page  after  page, 
signed  by  him,  might  just  as  well  be  by  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse.  She  inspires  every  one." 


THEIR    HAPPINESS  139 

These  are  happy  times  for  our  hero  and  heroine, 
happy  according  to  their  two  natures  and  kinds, 
but  happy  in  an  almost  equal  degree.  Julie's 
happiness  is  founded  on  the  apparent  security  of 
this  calm  existence.  Snatched  from  her  natural 
home  when  yet  a  child,  and  since  passed  from 
household  to  household,  always  a  bird  of  passage 
with  no  fixed  ties,  she  believes  that  she  has  now 
found  a  port  in  which  she  may  defy  all  future  storms. 
She  is  no  less  pleased  by  her  new  feeling  of  inde- 
pendence, the  ability  to  satisfy  her  tastes  and  choose 
her  own  life,  subject  to  the  approval  of  no  other 
mind.  Above  all,  having  long  suffered  from  the 
coldness  or  hostility  of  those  with  whom  she  was 
forced  to  live,  she  now  tastes  the  profound  joy  of 
dwelling  in  an  atmosphere  of  warm  and  faithful 
affection.  Her  first  joy  and  gratitude  finds  such 
lively  expression  that  its  language  often  seems 
that  of  love,  or  such  as  might  at  least  convey  the 
impression  of  love  to  a  responsive  heart.  "You 
have  so  often  told  me,"  d'Alembert  cries  later, 
"  that  of  all  the  feelings  which  you  have  inspired, 
mine  for  you  and  yours  for  me  were  the  only  ones 
that  never  caused  you  unhappiness !  .  .  .  You  did 
at  least  love  me  for  a  moment,  and,  besides,  no  one 
either  loves  or  will  again  love  me."  Her  own 
testimony  makes  it  impossible  to  doubt  that  this 
quietude,  this  delirium  of  liberty,  this  infinite 
sweetness  of  finding  herself  beloved,  flooded  her 
soul  with  such  delights  that  her  happiness  reached 
moments  of  intensity  when  she  was,  as  it  were, 
"terrified"  by  it. 


140  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Assurances  and  warmth  of  this  quality  were 
enough  for  d'Alembert.  His  companion's  absolute 
faith  in  him,  the  certitude  that  he  is  the  "first 
thought  of  her  heart,"  the  way  in  which  her 
personality  stands  to  him  for  all  that  he  has 
missed  in  life,  are  ample  payment  for  his  cease- 
less care  and  services  in  her  behalf.  Long  after- 
wards, when  broken  with  grief,  the  calling  to 
remembrance  of  this  period  in  his  life,  and  the 
weighing  of  it  against  all  his  recent  misfortunes, 
compel  him  to  proclaim  himself  his  friend's  still 
undischarged  debtor.  An  elegy,  deploring  her 
loss,  breaks  from  tears  into  a  dithyramb  of  pure 
gratitude.  "You  who  loved  me,  by  whom  I  at 
least  believed  myself  loved ;  you  to  whom  I  owe 
some  joy  or  the  illusion  of  it ;  you  whose  whilom 
expressions  of  tenderness,  still  so  sweet  a  memory, 
require  more  gratitude  from  my  heart  than  all  else 
that  breathes  around  me !  .  .  ."  There  is  more 
here  than  literary  exaggeration  or  poetic  hyperbole. 
Facts  attest  its  sincerity,  for  when,  after  seven 
years  of  such  common  existence,  d'Alembert  suc- 
ceeded to  Duclos'  post  of  perpetual  Secretary  to 
the  Academy  in  April  1772,  he  refused  that  suite 
in  the  Louvre  which  was  one  of  the  appointments 
of  the  office.  Poor  as  he  was,  he  never  hesitated, 
but  chose  to  retain  his  humble  rooms  in  the  joiner's 
house  rather  than  remove  to  this  free  and  grand 
apartment.  All  his  gain  from  the  secretaryship 
was  a  salary  of  twelve  hundred  livres,  and  out  of 
this  he  was  compelled  to  "  maintain  the  Academy 
fire ! "  "  I  should  save  the  wood  by  feeding  the 


MADAME   GEOFFRIN  141 

flames  with  all  their  fine  works,"  was  Madame  du 
Deffand's  caustic  saying. 

The  irregular  housekeeping  of  this  couple  made 
its  bow  to  society  under  the  aegis  of  the  same 
woman  who  had  lately  afforded  such  generous 
help  to  Julie.  Madame  Geoffrin  was  d'Alembert's 
oldest  friend,  even  if  he  had  neglected  her  a  little 
during  Madame  du  Deffand's  ascendency.  On  his 
quarrel  with  the  latter,  he  hastened  to  return  to  his 
place  in  the  salon  of  her  famous  rival,  and  warm 
as  was  the  welcome  extended  to  the  prodigal,  its 
heartiness  redoubled  when  he  ushered  Julie  into 
the  charmed  circle.  Madame  de  la  Ferte  Imbault 
records  her  "  extreme  astonishment  when,  return- 
ing from  the  country  one  day,  I  saw  in  my  mother's 
salon  a  strange  face,  which  I  never  remembered  to 
have  seen  there  before,  and  the  owner  of  which 
seemed  perfectly  at  home."  One  easily  shares  this 
confession  of  astonishment,  for  few  women  could 
appear  less  like  each  other  than  this  couple.  They 
are  poles  apart  in  age,  tastes,  and  character.  One 
was  always  mistress  of  herself,  temperate  and  calm, 
fitness  and  moderation  the  constant  study,  as  they 
were  the  rule,  of  her  life.  The  other  was  all 
passion,  impetuous,  and  for  ever  agitated  by  the 
fire  that  she  brought  to  every  act  of  her  life. 
Morellet  neatly  sums  up  the  contrast  by  saying 
that  "the  one  asks  nothing  but  to  be  allowed  to 
taste  the  pleasures  of  society  and  friendship  in 
peace,  while  the  other's  enjoyment  is  incessantly 
troubled  by  the  very  heat  of  her  own  affections." 
Contrast  or  no  contrast,  however,  it  remains  sure 


142  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

that  close  friendship  sprang  up  almost  at  once. 
Each,  doubtless,  liked  the  other  for  those  qualities 
in  which  she  was  consciously  deficient,  and  esteem, 
founded  upon  the  recognition  of  a  reciprocal  honesty 
and  sincerity,  strengthened  the  attraction. 

Madame  Geoffrin  seems  to  have  succumbed 
first.  She,  at  all  events,  made  the  first  advances. 
The  old  and  experienced  virtuoso  in  the  art  of 
conducting  a  salon  and  leading  conversation  was 
carried  away  and  astonished  by  the  warm  animation 
of  words  issuing  from  a  sensitive  and  enthusiastic 
soul,  yet  restrained  by  the  finest  tact  and  most 
sensitive  taste.  She  could  not  fail  to  see  that  such 
a  recruit  might  add  inestimable  interest  to  the 
conversation,  and  charm  to  the  gatherings,  of 
which  she  was  so  proud.  She  numbered  Julie  de 
Lespinasse  among  the  guests  at  her  Monday  and 
Wednesday  dinners,  and  no  sooner  was  the  new- 
comer admitted  than  she  became  the  crown-jewel, 
the  chief  attraction,  the  star  round  which  so  many 
famous  satellites  moved.  But  Julie's  success  was 
still  incomplete.  Strange  to  relate,  she  even 
conquered  the  masterful  soul  which  ruled  the 
Encyclopaedia,  and  in  whom  her  contemporaries 
acclaimed  "the  hand  of  Alexander."  Madame 
Geoffrin  was  presently  so  enslaved  that  she  could 
not  contemplate  the  idea  of  separation  from  this 
dear  intimate,  demanded  her  constant  companion- 
ship, and  treated  her  less  as  a  friend  than  as  a 
daughter — one  of  those  dear  spoiled  daughters 
who  command  rather  than  obey,  and  whose 
desires  are  law. 


HER  ALLIANCE   WITH   JULIE     143 

Julie  can  hardly  be  blamed  for  accepting  so 
sweet  and  motherly  an  affection,  the  less  that  she 
never  trespassed  upon  it.  Nor  may  one  blame 
her  if  some  years  of  such  treatment  led  her  to 
assume  the  carriage  and  airs  of  a  true  daughter 
of  the  house,  yet  never  to  fail  in  respect  or  sincere 
and  disinterested  devotion.  Yet,  despite  her  real 
innocence,  Julie  de  Lespinasse  has  not  escaped 
the  severest  strictures  or  the  most  cruel  suspicions. 
My  Royaume  de  la  Rue  Saint  Honor'e  recounted 
the  tale  of  jealousy,  fears,  and  outrageous  im- 
putations directed  against  her  by  the  lawful 
daughter  of  the  house,  and  I  have  quoted  whole 
pages  in  which  the  Marquise  de  la  Ferte  Imbault 
indulges  her  angry  indignation,  in  the  most  violent 
terms,  at  the  spectacle  of  this  "usurping"  stranger 
in  undisputed  possession  of  the  heart  and  home  of 
her  mother.  I  have  clearly  shown  the  baseless 
nature  of  these  accusations,  but  the  impatience 
from  which  they  sprang  is  natural  enough. 
D'Alembert  and  Julie — inseparable  in  this  con- 
text— were,  however  venially,  in  the  wrong  when 
they  declined  to  use  a  proper  degree  of  tact,  and 
over-loudly  proclaimed  their  exclusive  position  in 
the  first  salon  of  the  century. 

Daily  at  first,  but  later  twice  every  day,  the 
pair  arrived  in  company,  and  remained  for  whole 
hours  together  alone  with  Madame  Geoffrin,  or 
helping  to  receive  her  numerous  visitors  and  to 
lead  the  conversation.  So  completely  did  they 
feel  at  ease,  and  so  completely  at  home,  that  they 
frequently  caused  letters  to  be  directed  to  the 


144  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

house.  If  Madame  de  la  Ferte  Imbault  is  to  be 
believed,  the  "usurpation"  went  even  further,  for 
she  protests  that  her  mother,  at  one  time  so  exces- 
sively jealous  of  her  authority,  finally  resigned  an 
integral  part  of  it  to  Julie,  who  thereafter  admitted, 
or  refused  admission,  to  the  salon  at  her  own  will. 

One  point  in  all  this  tangle  is  all  that  need  be 
noticed  here.  Whatever  advantages  Julie  gained 
from  her  intimacy  with  Madame  Geoffrin,  they  were 
not  of  that  interested  kind  assumed  by  persons  who 
did  not  really  know  her,  and  which  were  as  far 
from  her  thoughts  as  they  were  impossible  to  one 
of  her  character.  She  reaped  great  moral  advan- 
tages, and  they  were  none  the  less  valuable  for 
being  of  no  more  tangible  kind.  Her  judgment  of 
persons  and  things  became  more  moderate.  She 
learned  a  conduct  more  clever  and  more  wise, 
coming  to  hold  her  friends  by  little  kindnesses, 
constant  attentions,  even,  on  occasion,  by  yielding 
a  point  or  making  a  real  sacrifice.  To  the  lessons 
and  example  derived  from  her  septuagenarian 
friend,  she  largely  owed  such  calm  and  repose  as 
mark  the  early  years  of  her  enfranchisement — the 
years  of  which  she  was  afterwards  to  say,  that  they 
were  the  only  truly  happy  part  of  her  life.  Nor 
was  she  less  indebted  to  Madame  Geoffrin,  and 
the  friendships  made  under  her  eye  or  among  her 
friends,  for  the  first  establishment  of  her  own 
reputation  and  the  foundation  of  that  salon  which 
was  afterwards,  and  for  long,  the  prime  interest 
of  her  existence. 

To  found  a  salon  was  the  dream  of  many  women 


JULIE    FOUNDS    A   SALON        145 

of  the  time — and  to  found  a  real  salon,  no  mere 
congeries  of  invited  guests,  or  room  through  which 
men  pass  and  are  no  more  seen,  but  a  homogeneous 
society,  a  disciplined  group  with  its  own  especial 
tone,  and  a  species  of  moral  singleness,  however 
diverse  its  members,  was  an  ambitious  dream  in 
an  age  when  so  many  established  rivals  seemed 
to  protest  the  folly  of  rivalry.  Madame  du  Deffand 
was  now  at  the  height  of  her  fame,  seeing,  to  quote 
the  Abbe  Delille, 

"  Europe,  a  threefold  circle,  round  her  chair ! " 

The  Marquise  du  Deffand  was  avowedly  leader 
of  the  wittiest  company.  In  Madame  Necker's 
luxurious  hotel  in  Rue  de  Cle>y,  a  rather  grave 
assemblage  was  already  meeting  to  discuss  the 
grand  problems  of  to-day  and  to-morrow,  theorising} 
and  formulating  the  ideas  which  the  Revolution 
was  presently  to  proclaim  as  its  facts.  Three  so 
famous  assemblies,  to  name  no  others,  surely  dis- 
countenanced the  hope  that  a  young  and  poor 
woman,  and  one  of  irregular  origins,  could  found 
a  rival  under  their  shadow,  and  this  in  the  poor 
apartments  of  a  joiner's  house,  handicapped  by  a 
lack  of  means  which  was  content,  says  Grimm,  to 
proffer  "somewhat  to  digest"  since  it  could  afford 
neither  dinner,  supper,  nor  collation.  Her  success 
was  no  less  astonishing  than  rapid.  In  the  space 
of  a  few  months,  the  modest  room  with  the  crimson 
blinds  was  nightly  filled,  between  the  hours  of  six 
and  ten,  by  a  crowd  of  chosen  visitors,  courtiers, 
and  men  of  letters,  soldiers  and  churchmen,  ambas- 

K 


146  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

sadors  and  great  ladies,  the  whole  innumerable 
host  of  the  Encyclopaedia  —  leaders,  auxiliaries, 
and  sharpshooters  alike,  each  and  all  gaily  jostling 
elbows  as  they  struggled  up  the  narrow  wooden 
stairs,  unregretting,  and  forgetting  in  the  ardour  of 
their  talk  the  richest  houses  in  Paris,  their  suppers 
and  balls,  the  Opera,  and  the  futile  lures  of  the 
grand  world. 

D'Alembert's  official  patronage  of,  and  constant 
presence  at,  these  receptions  was  one  real  and  very 
apparent  cause  of  their  success.  I  certainly  shall 
not  contest  the  intellectual  dominance  of  woman 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  or  her  governance,  on 
which  so  much  has  been  written,  "unwearied,  un- 
assuaged,  and  without  intermission  "  in  the  domain 
of  ideas — the  period's  revenge,  so  to  speak,  for  so 
many  centuries  of  masculine  supremacy.  I  would 
not  even  deny  that  woman  frequently  showed  her- 
self worthy  of  this  supremacy  by  the  breadth  of 
her  interests,  her  culture  and  intellect,  her  zeal  to 
learn  all  and  understand  all,  to  walk  abreast  with 
the  times,  whether  in  literature,  science,  or  politics. 
No  age,  moreover,  has  been  better  aware  of  the 
charm  and  profit  with  which,  be  the  assemblage 
never  so  grave  or  the  theme  so  high,  the  lined 
brows  of  learned  men,  thinkers  and  reformers, 
may  mingle  with  such  faces  as  Latour  has  im- 
mortalised. Fine  features,  a  lively  eye,  a  laughing 
lip  ready  with  the  instant  word,  animate  and  point 
a  debate,  moderate  the  heat  of  this  one  or  spur 
the  sluggishness  of  that,  bring  back  to  reality 
thoughts  soaring  among  the  clouds,  or  prick,  with 


THE   CONDUCT   OF   A   SALON      147 

delicate  skill,  the  windbags  of  theoretical  dreamers. 
"Society,"  opines  Morellet,  "needs  this  condiment 
as  coffee  needs  sugar.  I  know  men  who  do  not 
require  sugar  in  their  coffee,  but  I  have  no  respect 
for  them  on  that  score." 

A  properly  regulated  salon  of  the  time,  yet 
more  "  a  shop  of  bright  wits,"  habitually  sought  the 
discreet  presidency  and  spiritual  leadership  of  one 
of  those  patent  guides,  "the  Saints  of  the  En- 
cyclopaedia," whose  influence  had  replaced  priestly 
authority  among  enfranchised  womankind.  "  The 
necessity  under  which  we  labour  of  passing  judg- 
ment upon  each  day's  novelty,"  remarks  a  clear- 
headed stranger,  "compels  each  house  to  maintain 
a  wit,  videlicet  a  person  to  form  its  opinion  on  what- 
ever matter  is  in  hand."  Every  intellectual  circle, 
therefore,  owns  its  philosopher.  He  gives  tone  to 
the  discussions,  guides  opinion  upon  men  and  things, 
and  lightly  guides  the  faithful  in  the  narrow  way  of 
the  new  gospel.  Fontenelle  long  played  this  part 
in  Madame  Geoffrin's  salon.  Grimm  played  it  for 
Madame  d'Epinay,  and  Diderot  for  Baron  d'Hol- 
bach.  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  found  her  guide 
in  d'Alembert,  first-lieutenant  of  Voltaire,  promoter 
of  the  Encyclopaedia,  and  as  diverse  in  his  talents 
as  he  was  a  pattern  in  his  morals  ;  possibly  the  man 
of  all  Europe  who  stood  second  only  to  the  patri- 
arch of  Ferney.  "  D'Alembert  can  be  found  no- 
where else,"  affirmed  Abbe  Galiani.  "  Here  he  is 
always  to  be  seen,  elsewhere  never."  The  lustre 
and  prestige  which  he  conferred  on  the  little  gather- 
ings in  the  Rue  Saint  Dominique  may  be  imagined, 


148  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

nor  need  any  further  explanation  be  sought  for  the 
instantaneous  success  of  a  salon  which  came  to  birth 
under  such  a  star. 

But,  whatever  the  truth  of  all  this,  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse  must  justly  be  credited  with  the  feat 
of  having  herself  fashioned  the  great  place  which 
she  holds  in  contemporary  society.  D'Alembert 
might  attract  men  ;  she  held  them  and  made  them 
her  own.  Chance  visitors  aspire  to  become  familiars 
of  her  circle  because  she  is  its  leader.  She  is  the 
"soul  and  charm  "  of  this  variegated  company,  and 
her  want  of  personal  beauty  prolongs  rather  than 
hinders  the  duration  of  her  success,  for  no  woman 
was  yet  a  loser  when  she  need  fear  neither  the 
passage  of  her  youth  nor  the  ravages  of  time. 
Eighteenth-century  taste  was  not,  indeed,  enslaved 
to  a  virgin  soul  or  a  cheek  in  its  first  bloom.  As  a 
correspondent  writes  to  Walpole,  "  Englishwomen 
do  not  find  that  the  years  between  thirty  and  forty 
bring  them  their  most  numerous  triumphs.  You 
will  see  that  Paris  favours  them  then  far  more  than 
when  they  are  extremely  young."  Julie  de  Lespi- 
nasse was  irresistible,  but  her  fascination  depended 
upon  far  less  transitory  charms  than  a  pleasant  face 
or  fresh  complexion.  Her  success  rested,  above  all, 
on  that  marvellous  gift  incessantly  noted  by  contem- 
porary observers — the  power  of  constantly  making 
herself  a  new  person,  of  being  ever  with  each  and 
all,  of  spending  on  every  subject  the  clear  bright- 
ness of  her  intelligence  ;  and  all  this  without  seeking 
to  be  witty,  but  rather  to  draw  out  the  wit  of  her 
companions  to  the  fullest  possible  extent.  "She 


JULIE    SALONI&RE  149 

could  bring  into  harmony  persons  of  the  most  dis- 
similar intelligence,"  avers  Grimm,  "often  indeed 
those  who  were  very  antitheses  to  each  other, 
without  seeming  to  exert  herself  in  the  least.  A 
single  adroit  word  from  her  gave  new  life  to  con- 
versation, sustained  it  or  turned  it  as  she  pleased. 
No  subject  seemed  without  interest  for  her,  and  there 
was  none  in  which  she  could  not  interest  others. 
.  .  .  Her  genius  seemed  omnipresent,  and  one 
might  imagine  that  some  invisible  charm  was  con- 
stantly turning  each  man's  interest  back  to  their 
common  source." 

Grimm's  penetrating  eye  here  seizes  upon  the 
particular  gift,  one  might  say  the  social  secret,  of 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse.  However  eager  her 
conversation,  it  was  always  refined,  elegant,  and 
anxious  to  please.  Her  subtle  intuition  and  cor- 
rect taste  immediately  perceived  the  strength  and 
weakness  of  a  companion,  what  will  interest,  and 
the  suitable  mode  of  address.  "  Her  talk,"  says 
Guibert,  "  was  never  above  or  beneath  a  man. 
She  seemed  to  possess  a  key  to  all  characters,  the 
measure  and  exact  quality  of  all  spirits."  Having 
learned  that  the  surest  road  to  the  heart  is  to  seem 
lost  in  its  owner,  her  best  friends  seldom  heard  her 
speak  of  herself,  but  were  themselves  her  continual 
theme."  She  was  the  soul  of  a  conversation,  never 
its  subject,  and  if  this  sustained  habit  implies 
much  contrivance,  it  cost  her  less  than  might  be 
supposed.  She  was  a  born  taster  of  the  talents 
and  qualities  of  those  with  whom  she  came  in  con- 
tact, and  her  pleasure  lay  in  unravelling  and  sharp- 


150  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

ening  these.  "  My  lively  appreciation  of  any  in- 
teresting quality  in  my  companions  made  them 
believe  me  an  amiable  person,"  she  once  wrote, 
and  she  returns  to  the  same  theme  in  this :  "I 
have  felt  a  hundred  times  that  I  pleased  a  man 
because  his  spirit  or  taste  pleased  me,  and  the 
usual  reason  for  liking  me  is  the  belief  or  percep- 
tion that  I  am  impressed.  .  .  .  This  proves  at  once 
the  poverty  of  my  own  spirit,  and  the  impression- 
able nature  of  my  soul.  In  all  this  I  am  neither 
vain  nor  modest,  but  a  simple  dealer  in  the  truth." 

This  interest  in  her  surroundings,  and  capacity 
for  entering  into  the  heart  and  mind  of  others,  are 
no  doubt  a  partial  consequence  of  the  innate  desire 
to  please,  and  that  hunger  for  conquest,  already  so 
well  known  to  us.  But  all  this  follows  readily  on 
her  eclectic  taste,  that  open  quality  of  her  mind 
which  makes  it  easy  for  her  to  understand  every 
sort  of  idea,  the  various  forms  of  thought,  each  and 
all  of  the  multitudinous  manifestations  of  human 
activity.  "  I  am  happy  enough  in  my  ability  to 
care  for  things  apparently  the  very  contrary  of  each 
other.  ...  It  is  seldom  that  I  fail  to  see  both  sides 
of  a  question,  and  those  sides  are  possibly  anti- 
pathetic only  for  those  who  are  always  in  the  judg- 
ment-seat, and  cursed  with  the  incapacity  for  feel- 
ing. ...  I  eschew  comparisons,  and  only  enjoy." 
When  a  friend  asks  her  to  justify  her  approbation 
of  a  new  opera,  she  replies,  "You  know  very  well 
that  I  never  think,  and  do  not  judge  ; "  and  she  pro- 
ceeds to  explain  that  "  impressions  "  are  enough  for 
her,  for  they  are  real  if  sometimes  extreme.  "  You 


FREEDOM    IN    HER   SALON        151 

never  heard  me  call  a  thing  good  or  bad,  but  I 
express  my  likings  a  thousand  times  a  day,  and  I 
can  say  of  all  things  what  the  witty  lady  said  of  her 
two  nephews :  '  /  like  my  eldest  nephew  for  his 
wits,  and  my  youngest  because  he's  such  an  ass ! " 
So  expansive  a  mind  is  naturally  tolerant. 
"  Monsieur  d'Alembert  has  been  to  '  Harlequin/ 
and  likes  it  better  than  '  Orpheus.'  Every  one's 
opinion  is  right,  and  I  certainly  will  not  criticise 
tastes.  Good  is  a  word  that  applies  to  every- 
thing." 

One  can  imagine  the  easy  intercourse  and  out- 
spoken manner  current  in  a  salon  ruled  by  such 
principles.  Independence  and  variety  are  its  watch- 
words, and  the  characteristic  distinction  among  all 
rivals.  Madame  Geoffrin's  flock  are  bound  under 
a  strict  law.  The  tyrannical  wisdom  and  rough 
tolerance  of  this  arbitrary  daughter  of  the  middle 
classes  bind  their  ranks  in  salutary  fear.  The 
crozier  of  "  Dom  Burigny,  that  short-skirted  Bene- 
dictine "  and  guardian  of  order,  is  quickly  out- 
stretched to  snatch  back  within  the  narrow  way,  be 
the  error  never  so  small,  any  expression  or  idea, 
doctrine  or  person.  "  One  mayn't  utter  a  word," 
groans  a  victim,  piteously  resistant.  Madame  du 
Deffand  certainly  maintains  no  such  policeman,  but 
her  profession  of  enlightened  indifference  towards 
large  questions,  and  her  disdainful  scepticism  and 
horror  of  "  reasonings,"  banish  the  highest  themes 
from  her  salon.  Morality,  religion,  or  politics  are 
hardly  admitted,  and,  even  so,  seldom  otherwise  than 
as  material  for  raillery  and  epigrams.  Madame 


152  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Necker  talks  of  little    else  than    social    economics 
and  the   political    situation.       Dissertations   rather 
than    conversation   are   the   rule   round  her  table, 
until  her   friendly  suppers    might   really   seem    an 
assembly  of  statesmen  or  some  academic  session. 
More  than  in  any  other  quarter,  perhaps  in  this 
alone,   the    gatherings   in  the.  little   salon   of   Rue 
Saint  Dominique  are  exempt   from    restraint   and 
monotony   alike.       Words    are    bolder    and    more 
spontaneous    here    than    in    Rue    Saint    Honore, 
more  serious  and  deeper  than  in  the  Convent  of 
Saint  Joseph,  less  solemn  and  more  sparkling  than 
in  the  mansion  in  Rue  de  Clery.      No  subject  is 
proscribed,  no    restriction    imposed.        Philosophic 
and   literary   questions  alternate  without  effort  or 
apparent   intention ;    politics    displace   history,  and 
yield  to  discussions  of  great  events  or  to  the  pettiest 
social  gossip.     The  jest  of  the  day  circulates,  and 
last  night's  play  is  criticised.     Then  suddenly,  with 
never  a  note  of  warning,  some  sublime  or  eternal 
problem  demands  attention.     "General  talk,"  avers 
Grimm,    "never   languished    here,    but,    under    no 
obligation,  the  company  turned  to  other   issues  as 
it  felt   moved."     Here  was  neither  constraint  nor 
yoke — in    one    word,    no    barriers    but    those    of 
decency.     Intellect  and  temperament  were  allowed 
full  play,  and  every  character  had  full  licence  to 
develop    its    own    bent.        And    yet,    out    of  this 
republic    of  tastes,   a    very    seeming    land    of  an- 
archy,  "  the  delicate  genius "  of  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse  was  able  to  compass  a  real  unity.     "She 
found  them    anywhere,"  says    Marmontel,  writing 


HER   SYMPATHY  153 

of  her  guests,  "yet  they  were  so  well  assorted  that 
harmony  reigned  within  her  doors,  as  though  the 
company  were  an  instrument  of  many  strings,  each 
obedient  to  her  touch.  .  .  .  And  her  conduct  of  the 
instrument  amounted  to  genius."  Fear  lest  she  be 
vexed,  and  desire  to  please  her,  are  the  only  rules 
under  her  roof,  and  suffice  for  perfect  government. 
She  is  uncontested  queen  in  the  intellectual  tourney, 
and  her  smile  alone  stands  gage  for  the  challenges 
of  wit  or  eloquence.  The  best  encouragement  and 
the  rarest  recompense  are  her  smile  or  an  approving 
word. 

Julie  de  Lespinasse  was  exceptionally  fortunate 
in  that  the  members  of  her  salon  were  almost  always 
her  friends — yet  another  point  in  which  her  circle 
stands  alone  among  all  competitors.  Madame 
Geoffrin  is  feared,  Madame  du  Deffand  admired, 
and  Madame  Necker  respected.  Julie  alone  is 
loved.  "She  had  such  a  gift  of  sympathy  that 
there  was  never  yet  man  who,  after  a  fortnight's 
acquaintance,  would  have  hesitated  to  confide  his 
story  to  her  ears.  And  yet,  while  no  woman  ever 
owned  so  many  friends,  each  was  happy  in  seeming 
the  sole  possessor  of  her  affections."  Better  still, 
this  irresistible  motion  of  all  hearts  towards  a 
common  centre  created  a  bond  of  sympathy,  the 
sense  of  unity.  In  rival  gatherings,  the  new-comer 
is  viewed  with  hostile  eyes,  every  member  jealous 
of  the  rest,  the  whole  mass  infected  with  secret 
hates  and  mute  cabals.  Julie's  faithful  understand, 
appreciate,  and  support  each  other,  and  one  of  them 
cries,  after  her  death,  "  We  all  felt  friends  before 


i54  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

her,  because  the  same  feelings  had  drawn  us  to- 
gether. Alas,  how  many  saw  each  other,  sought 
one  another,  and  were  agreed  together  in  her  who, 
now  that  she  is  gone,  will  be  no  more  seen,  sought, 
or  desired  of  any  one  of  us  all."  This  comradeship 
was  purely  her  work.  Her  coquetry  was  of  this 
kind,  that  all  who  love  her  must,  so  to  speak,  com- 
municate in  their  passionate  affection  for  her.  All 
her  skill  is  set  to  seal  and  fortify — be  the  persons, 
their  ideas,  or  social  rank  never  so  different  in  origin, 
— a  sentimental  association,  a  brotherly  alliance, 
of  which  herself  is  both  cause,  end,  and  means. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  insist  on  the  power 
of  such  a  mutual  understanding,  the  influence  at  the 
disposal  of  so  firm  a  band  of  men  of  the  world  and 
men  of  talent.  It  was  a  reasonable  enough  saying 
that,  if  the  official  assizes  of  the  Encyclopaedia  were 
housed  in  Rue  Saint  Honore,  the  little  apart- 
ment in  Rue  Saint  Dominique  contained  its 
"laboratory."  Here,  in  truth,  were  most  often 
formulated  those  definite  decisions  upon  men  and 
things  which  were  current  in  next  day's  Paris, 
which  created  reputations,  made  and  sometimes 
unmade  great  men,  extended  or  withdrew  the 
patent  of  immortality.  Here,  too,  it  may  be 
said  that  the  Academy  chose  its  new  members. 
A  list  of  candidates  for  every  vacancy  was 
drawn  out  within  this  "family  circle,"  and  its 
favourite  was  more  than  likely  to  carry  the 
real  election.  D'Alembert's  "  dictatorship,"  to 
use  the  consecrated  phrase — the  academical  dic- 
tatorship which  was  soon  to  be  made  so  easy  by 


POWER   OF    HER   SALON          155 

his  official  position  as  perpetual  secretary — seems 
to  have  been  an  absolute  control  rather  than  that 
of  a  faction-leader.  But,  despot  that  he  was,  his 
daily  counsellor  wore  the  petticoats  of  Julie  de 
Lespinasse,  and  he  was  constantly  controlled  by  the 
deliberative  assembly  of  her  salon,  even  at  times 
subjected  to  its  direct  veto. 

This  assembly,  again,  finding  its  credit  in  the 
literary  world  insufficient  to  stay  ambition,  pre- 
sently stretched  out  a  hand  towards  the  ship  of  the 
State.  If  Madame  du  Deffand  once  owned  "her 
minister"  in  Choiseul,  Julie  de  Lespinasse  might 
surely  aspire  to  possess  hers  in  Turgot!  Yet, 
even  so,  she  never  abused  her  power,  and  we 
shall  see  that  this  passing  fortune  did  not  turn  her 
head.  Her  real  ambition  lay  within  the  domain  of 
intellect ;  and  within  its  bounds,  for  ten  long  years — 
though  with  less  external  pomp,  less  European 
renown,  than  Madame  Geoffrin — she  and  her  friends 
ruled  with  a  reality,  completeness,  and  directness 
unknown  to  this  or  any  other  rival. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Friendships  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Condorcet — His  entire  devotion 
to  Julie — He  defers  to  her  advice — She  plays  the  part  of  reason  against 
love  in  his  regard — Suard — Julie  secures  his  election  to  the  Academy — 
Her  affection  for,  and  testimonial  to  her  confidence  in  him — The  Chevalier 
de  Chastellux — Dissimilarity  between  his  character  and  that  of  Julie — 
Her  vexation  at  this,  but  her  just  appreciation  of  his  merits — Her  great 
services  to  him  —  Women  in  the  salon  of  Rue  Saint  Dominique  — 
Countess  de  Boufflers — Madame  de  Marchais — Jealousy  of  Julie  on  their 
account— The  Duchesse  de  Chatillon— She  wins  Julie's  heart. 

"  HERE,"  wrote  Sebastian  Mercier  in  his  Tableau 
de  Paris,  "  the  man  of  sense  must  choose  himself  a 
woman-friend.  Here,  there  are  many  of  them  who, 
accustomed  to  think  from  an  early  age,  are  more 
free  and  more  enlightened  than  elsewhere,  overpass 
the  barriers  of  prejudice,  and  possess  themselves  of 
a  man's  strong  soul,  yet  never  relinquish  the  sensi- 
bilities of  their  sex.  .  .  .  Woman  can  prove  an 
excellent  friend  at  thirty."  The  personal  chronicle 
of  the  eighteenth  century  clearly  demonstrates  the 
truth  of  this  passage.  It  is  an  endless  record  of 
attachments,  loveless  in  the  true  meaning  of  that 
term,  yet  in  which  a  woman  proves  man's  faithful 
and  disinterested  friend  —  a  friend  at  once  more 
attentive  and  of  finer  and  more  delicate  instincts 
than  a  fellow-man  can  possess,  ever  ready  to  help 
in  difficult  circumstances,  to  share  his  sorrows  as 
well  as  his  j'oys,  and  to  uplift  his  soul  in  hours  of 
trouble  or  disgrace. 

I    have   already    indicated    the   frequency   with 


JULIE    ON    "FRIENDSHIP"         157 

which  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  had  the  happy 
fortune  to  inspire  this  pure  and  consoling  senti- 
ment. She  suffered  its  claims  no  less,  and  enjoyed 
all  its  benefits  and  pleasures,  while,  as  her  nature 
was,  importing  a  certain  exaltation  into  both.  This 
celebration  of  its  joys  and  charms  is  quite  in  the 
lyric  vein.  "  Friendship  is  my  one  pleasure  and 
one  interest.  It  sustains  and  consoles  me,  and  I 
exist  only  to  love  and  cherish  my  friends.  Amiable, 
honest,  and  generous  friends,  what  do  I  not  owe  to 
you ! "  When,  in  the  days  of  distress,  she  is  ready 
to  shrink  from  the  proof,  she  calls  on  these  same 
friends  to  rally  her  failing  courage:  " Come,  come 
to  my  rescue,  to  give  me  new  heart,"  she  writes  to 
one  of  them.  "  Come,  that  I  may  say  that  my  day 
has  not  been  wholly  lost !  I  would  blot  out  from 
my  life  each  day  on  which  I  have  not  seen  a 
friend!"  In  the  letters  of  the  calm  period,  soon 
to  come,  during  which  her  larger  experience  plays 
mentor  to  the  youth  of  Abel  de  Vichy,  she  insist- 
ently recommends  friendship  and  the  innocent  joys 
of  the  heart  as  the  grand  secret  of  happiness.  "  At 
your  age,  my  dear  friend,  happiness  must  be  the 
child  of  feeling.  The  harshest  burden  of  old  age 
is  that  the  well-springs  of  love  run  dry.  Then, 
the  soul  becomes  warped  and  bent  upon  itself,  and 
we  live  by  scorn  alone.  Be  kind  to  your  sensibili- 
ties. They  are  the  fount  of  all  true  and  single 
pleasures." 

Thus  Julie  counsels  her  brother,  and  a  moment's 
survey  of  the  privileged  many  whose  lives  touched 
hers,  or  who  gained  a  share  in  the  treasures  of  her 


158  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

heart,  will  prove  that  she  practised  what  she  advised. 
Apart  from  d'Alembert —  unique  in  his  position, 
midway,  as  one  may  say,  between  that  of  a  lover 
and  a  friend — the  man  who  stood  highest  in  her 
confidence  and  sympathy  was  indubitably  Condorcet. 
This  selection  does  not  seem  the  most  natural  at 
first  sight,  for,  attractive  as  was  his  face,  it  was  still 
cold  and  inexpressive,  while  an  extreme  negligence 
in  dress  and  carriage — he  was  round-shouldered  and 
carried  his  head  bent  forward — were  not,  in  society 
at  all  events,  atoned  for  by  surpassing  brilliance. 
He  spoke  little,  and  that  usually  in  monosyllables, 
and  appeared  self-absorbed  and  preoccupied,  although 
few  things  really  escaped  a  cynical  observation  of  that 
dangerous  kind  which  no  one  mistrusts  because  it  is 
so  unsuspected.  He  was  a  mathematician  of  the 
first  order,  a  member  of  the  Academy  of  Science  at 
the  age  of  twenty-six,  and  therefore  not  unnaturally 
expected  to  make  himself  a  great  name  in  this  direc- 
tion. "  I  thought  him  a  better  man  than  myself," 
records  Fontaine,  "and  was  properly  jealous."  But 
this  geometrician  immediately  adds,  '*  He  has  since 
reassured  me!"  Condorcet,  indeed,  had  an  insatiable 
appetite  for  information;  a  trait  in  his  character  which, 
leading  him  to  investigate  all  things  and  all  men, 
rapidly  brought  him  down  to  the  place  of  a  "  popular- 
iser,"  the  brilliant  interpreter  of  others  rather  than  an 
inventor  or  creator  in  his  own  right.  This  scattering 
of  his  abilities,  joined  to  a  similar  parcelling  out  of 
his  affections,  did  not  fail  to  reveal  itself  to  Julie's 
clear  eye.  "He  works  for  ten  hours  a  day,"  she 
says,  with  a  thought  of  irony,  "and  has  twenty 


CONDORCET  159 

correspondents  and  ten  intimate  friends.  All  thirty 
might,  quite  naturally,  suppose  themselves  the  first 
object  of  his  thoughts.  Never,  ah !  never  has  man 
lived  so  many  lives,  enjoyed  such  opportunities,  or 
found  such  felicity  ! " 

While  these  faults  might  seriously  endanger 
Condorcet's  worldly  success  and  scientific  reputa- 
tion, they  did  but  make  him  a  more  pleasant 
companion.  The  range  of  his  interests  and  his 
prodigious  memory  enabled  him  to  treat  of  the 
most  diverse  subjects,  given  only  a  circle  suffici- 
ently small  not  to  arouse  his  timidity — "  Philosophy, 
belles  lettres,  science,  art,  governmentjurisprudence," 
says  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  "  and  having  once 
heard  him,  you  must  a  hundred  times  a  day  declare 
that  here  is  the  most  astonishing  man  ever  met. 
One  might  attribute  to  his  intelligence  that  especial 
faculty  of  the  Lord,  and  call  it  infinite  and  present, 
if  not  everywhere  at  all  events  wherever  there  is 
anything."  Even  his  capacity  for  scattering  his 
affections,  and  that  "  universal  good  nature  "  which 
bordered  on  weakness,  invested  him  with  a  kindli- 
ness to  touch  any  sensitive  soul.  "He  is  a  free 
lover,"  went  the  saying,  "but  then  he  loves  well." 
Contemporaries  also  unite  in  remarking  his  real 
helpfulness,  his  active  zeal  to  "  sympathise  and 
succour,"  and  this  at  real  personal  cost.  "  Possibly 
he  has  never  told  a  friend  '  I  love  you,'  but  he  has 
never  missed  an  opportunity  of  proving  the  fact. 
Not  one  of  them  can  ever  have  desired  a  clearer 
attestation  of  it  than  he  has  voluntarily  proffered." 
Julie,  author  of  this  encomium,  can  only  call  him 


160  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

'  Condorcet  the  good.'     In  their  most  strained  hours 
he  is  still  "Condorcet,  the  sometime  good." 

Condorcet  seems  to  have  deserved  her  admira- 
tion, although  in  certain  tragical  circumstances  his 
conduct  did  not  merit  this  epithet.  But  from  the 
day  when  d'Alembert  introduced  him  to  Julie,  no 
attentions  were  too  great  for  her.  Ever  at  her 
service  and  her  feet,  the  least  word  brings  him 
straight  to  Rue  Saint  Dominique.  "  Here  am  I 
back  in  Paris,"  he  writes  to  Turgot,  "and,  of 
course,  off  to  my  usual  post  as  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse's  secretary."  She  was  not  slow,  indeed, 
to  elevate  him  to  the  dignity  of  "  vice-secretary  "  ; 
and  when  the  habitual  bearer  of  the  title  is  absent, 
Condorcet,  at  the  post,  rivals  his  zeal,  and  stands 
only  second  to  him  in  the  heart  of  their  common 
mistress.  "  I  cannot  better  express  my  affection  for 
Messieurs  de  Condorcet  and  d'Alembert  than  by 
saying,  that  they  are  almost  a  single  person  in  my 
eyes,  as  essential  to  me  as  the  air  we  breathe. 
They  do  not  trouble  my  soul  but  possess  it." 
Finally,  when  she  is  bowed  under  the  sad  burden 
of  a  secret  that  cannot,  and  for  good  cause,  be 
shared  with  the  loving  d'Alembert,  Condorcet 
divides  with  another,  whose  name  will  shortly 
appear,  the  confidence,  if  not  in  its  entirety,  still  in 
sufficient  degree  to  be  able  to  perceive  its  burden 
of  struggles,  the  pain,  and  the  agony.  For  such 
a  part  he  was  well  fitted,  having  an  impenetrable 
reserve  which  made  indiscreet  curiosity  impossible 
and  himself  an  inviolable  repository,  certain  "  to 


CONDORCET  161 

keep  whatever  one  places  within  it."  His  hand  is 
also  skilled,  and  never  too  obvious,  in  soothing  a 
wound  and  quieting  the  smart  of  secret  stabs, 
while  his  fine  tact  is  quick  to  seize  the  word  that 
distracts  and  lulls — truly  the  right  consolation. 
Thus,  little  by  little,  he  becomes  essential  to  Julie, 
nor  is  she  ever  at  the  pains  to  deny  it.  "  Good 
God,  how  I  love  you  for  your  goodness !  You 
have  become  very  necessary  to  me,  and  I  should 
therefore  hate  you,  for  my  necessities  cause  me 
endless  woe."  The  shortest  absence  calls  up  re- 
grets for  his  lost  company.  She  "  desolately  "  finds 
"  my  sadness  doubled  every  day  until  the  hour 
when  I  shall  again  see  you." 

From  the  height  of  her  ten  years'  seniority  she 
instils  a  thought  of  protection  and  motherliness 
into  these  tender  feelings.  The  advice  and  good 
counsel  with  which  her  letters  to  him  teem,  fre- 
quently descend  to  the  smallest  details.  "  My  care 
for  your  education  is  concerned  even  with  your 
absence.  Never  gnaw  your  nails  or  your  lips. 
Nothing  is  more  indigestible,  so  famous  doctors 
assure  me.  .  .  .  Look  to  your  ears,  which  are 
always  full  of  powder,  and  to  your  hair,  which  is 
always  so  cropped  that  you  must  really  be  careful 
or  your  cranium  will  come  much  too  near  your  hat. 
.  .  .  You  drink  too  much  coffee  for  the  good  of 
your  nerves.  ...  It  is  foolish  to  work  at  your 
geometry  like  a  fool,  to  sup  like  an  ogre,  and  to 
sleep  no  more  than  a  hare.  You  can  be  sure  that 
it  is  I,  and  not  my  secretary  (d'Alembert),  who  write 

L 


162  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

all  this,  for  he  could  never  have  composed  Voltaire's 
verse  on  Time — 

'  For  all  consumes  him ;  love  alone  employs.' 

He  would  have  written — 

'  Consumes  him  all,  and  algebra  employs.' " 

I  might  quote  endless  proofs  of  such  solicitude, 
but  Julie's  chief  concern  is  with  her  friend's  soul. 
Here,  she  is  a  priceless  counsellor,  and  never  was 
counsel   more  to  the  point.      Condorcet,  the  dog- 
matic writer,  and  concise  in  argument,  vacillates, 
and  has  no  will  when  conduct  is  in  question.     "  A 
wad  of  cotton  saturated  in  fine  liqueurs,"  Madame 
Roland  called  him  at  a  later  date,  and  he  was  even 
more  "saturated"  at   this  time,  when  he  suffered 
greatly  on  account  of  a  certain  sentiment.     Made- 
moiselle d'Usse,   a  heartless  coquette,   had  him  in 
her  toils,  and  was   fully  employed  in  playing  with 
flames  that  she  in  no  sort  of  way  shared.     Con- 
dorcet, hovering  between  doubt  and  illusion,  exal- 
tation and  despair,  was  too  truly  involved  to  retain 
a  clear  perception  of  her  play,  and  Julie  had  the 
courage  to  open  his  eyes  and  help  him  to  sunder 
the  toils.     "  Pull  yourself  together,"  she  writes  to 
him,   "and  abandon  a  dream  from  which  you  will 
never  get  either  pleasure  or  consolation.     Be  happy 
in  your  friends,  and  do  not  subject  them  to  the  pain 
of  seeing  you  degraded  by  self-imposed  servitude  to 
a  person  whose  friend,  even,  you  say  that  you  can 
never  be.     You  were  never  formed  to  play  the  tide- 
waiter,  or  fill  the  place  of  a  complaisant  person." 
She  repeats  the  truism  that   flight  before  love   is 


HIS    RELATIONS    WITH    JULIE     163 

often  the  strong  man's  part,  exhorts  him  to  "  hold 
a  little  more  by  your  own  strength,  bravely  remove 
himself  from  the  sight  of  so  ungrateful  a  person, 
and  even  refrain  from  all  correspondence,  whatever 
the  consequent  reproaches  or  pleading.  For," 
she  cleverly  adds,  "this  denying  you  your  happi- 
ness makes  it  your  duty  at  least  to  do  nothing  in 
support  of  a  disposition  so  hurtful  to  your  life. 
I  know  very  well  that  a  sentiment  is  often  dearer 
than  its  inspiration,  but  to  consider  how  uninterest- 
ing one  has  been  to  people  who  might  have  claimed 
the  sacrifice  of  very  life,  is  to  be  not  humiliated  but 
disgusted,  also,  surely,  chilled." 

In  this  way,  Julie  long  lifts  up  her  voice  in  the 
desert — as  wise  for  another  as  she  is,  at  the  same 
moment,  improvident  towards  herself.  But  two 
years  of  vain  effort  bore  fruit  at  last,  and  she  had 
the  joy  of  seeing  her  counsel  accepted  and  her 
friend  freed.  "  I  am  quite  delighted  to  hear  you 
say  that  your  soul  shall  no  longer  be  troubled  by  the 
kindness  or  unkindness  of  Rue  des  Capucines.  .  .  . 
Feeling  spells  so  much  pain  that  it  should  at  least 
bring  some  reward,  and  where  is  this  to  be  found 
in  devotion  to  a  quarter  which  offers  no  response  ?  " 
Here  are  wisdom  and  prudence  indeed,  but  there  is 
something  as  piquant  as  it  is  unexpected  in  Julie  de 
Lespinasse  urging,  and  urging  with  such  warmth, 
the  dull  claim  of  prudence  against  the  waywardness 
of  the  heart,  of  reason  against  love. 

This  common-sense  discernment  of,  and  pas- 
sionate desire  to  serve,  her  friend's  best  interests 
are  equally  apparent  in  the  relations  of  Mademoi- 


1 64  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

selle  de  Lespinasse  with  another  man,  but  little 
less  dear  to  her  than  "  Condorcet  the  good."  "  In 
God's  name,"  she  exhorts  Suard,  "  be  interested  in 
your  own  concerns.  I  fear  that  you  are  singularly 
negligent  there,  and  the  idea  troubles  me  more  than 
a  little.  I  would  wish  you  some  joy,  did  I  believe 
that  we  find  it  in  this  sad  life.  But  some  calm 
and  repose  we  may  have,  and  I  would  fain  see 
you  enjoy  them,  untouched  by  the  discomforts  of 
ill-luck.  I  do  not  fear  poverty  for  myself,  esteem- 
ing it  but  the  lack  of  an  advantage ;  but  in  respect 
to  a  friend,  I  feel  it  as  a  real  pain."  Julie  writes 
to  the  point,  for,  "  poor  enough  to  die  of  hunger," 
Suard  had  married  a  girl  with  no  other  portion 
than  her  intellect  and  beauty,  and  was,  at  least 
in  his  youth,  precisely  one  of  those  men  who 
live  from  hand  to  mouth,  take  no  thought  for 
to-morrow,  and  trust  the  day's  bread  to  fortune. 
This  exaggeration  of  unworldliness,  part  careless- 
ness and  part  pride,  absolutely  enraged  Madame 
Geoffrin,  titular  patroness  of  the  famished  writer. 
Her  indignation,  when  he  one  day  missed  a 
lucrative  post  for  sheer  lack  of  putting  out  a 
hand  to  take  it,  found  vent  in  the  vexed  cynicism, 
"  Beggars'  pride  is  luxury  indeed !  "  "  Per  contra, 
Madame,"  was  Suard's  smart  retort,  "  it's  their 
necessity,  for  without  it  what  else  have  they?" 

Less  brutally  no  doubt,  and  certainly  with 
better  success,  Julie  reiterates  the  same  truth, 
and  manfully  struggles  to  establish  the  fortunes 
of  this  careless  man.  Despite  his  active  resist- 
ance, she  forces  him  to  stand  for  the  chair  in  the 


HER   RELATIONS   WITH    SUARD     165 

Academy  left  vacant  by  the  death  of  Duclos.  The 
interesting  note  which  closed  this  struggle  has 
come  down  to  us  :  "In  reason's  name,  I  demand 
to  be  occasionally  considered  reasonable ;  and  in 
friendship's  name,  and  that  of  the  tender  interest 
I  have  in  you,  I  demand  that  you  cease  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  your  own  interests,  and  the  desire 
of  the  friends  who  have  combined  to  persuade 
you  to  seek  admission  to  the  Academy.  If  only 
that  these  Academicians  may  be  prevented  from 
electing  a  flat  or  a  nobody,  you  are  in  conscience 
bound  to  force  them  to  select  yourself.  I'm  not 
going  to  cite  the  infallible  reasons  which  support 
such  a  pretension  on  your  part.  Every  member 
of  that  body,  at  least  every  one  worth  the  mention, 
knows  and  feels  those  reasons  as  well  as  myself. 
For  heaven's  sake,  do  not  fly  in  the  face  of  justice, 
right  feeling,  and  interest,  and  do  not  hurt  me, 
your  friend,  by  declining  to  pursue  what  may  be 
for  your  pleasure  and  advantage  alike.  Farewell ! 
I  am  ill  and  foolish,  but  I  love  you  well." 

With  marvellous  unanimity,  d'Alembert's  party 
flung  all  their  weight  into  the  scales  in  support 
of  this  laggard  candidate,  and  Suard  triumphed 
in  a  stiffly-contested  election.  But  the  victory 
was  scarcely  won  before  an  unforeseen  mischance 
came  to  justify  his  original  objections.  The  King, 
at  this  moment  embroiled  with  the  Philosophers, 
declined  to  ratify  the  election  when  it  was  sub- 
mitted for  his  customary  acceptance.  Prince  de 
Beauvau,  at  Julie's  special  plea,  argued  the  cause 
of  a  writer  "of  irreproachable  morals,  and  who 


166  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

has  never  written  a  single  word  against  religion." 
His  generous  warmth  spent  itself  in  vain.  Louis 
XV.  proved  inflexible,  and  maintained  his  veto, 
giving  no  other  reason  than  that  "  his  connections 
displeased  me,  and  I  will  have  none  of  such." 
Suard  had  therefore  to  remain  on  the  threshold 
of  the  promised  land,  and  Prince  de  Beauvau  was 
the  only  person  to  profit  by  the  affair,  since  the 
entire  world  of  letters  joined  hands  to  laud  his 
courage,  spirit,  justice,  and  impartiality.  "  For 
myself,"  concluded  Madame  du  Deffand,  with  her 
usual  kindliness,  "  I  could  wish  that  he  had  re- 
served them  for  some  more  important  subject. 
It's  small  honour,  this  protecting  pedants  and 
cowards.  But  I  hold  my  tongue,  for  what  do 
such  things  matter  to  me,  after  all?" 

The  Academy  was  avenged  two  years  later, 
and  Julie  with  it.  The  accession  of  Louis  XVI. 
was,  notoriously,  considered  as  a  victory  of  the 
Encyclopaedists  over  "the  devout,"  of  reason  and 
tolerance  over  "  superstition  "  and  "  fanaticism." 
Suard's  succession  to  a  chair  seemed  proof  of 
these  new  tendencies.  He  was  elected  for  the 
second  time  hardly  a  month  after  the  new  King's 
accession,  and  took  his  place  unopposed  in  the 
midst  of  the  friends  whom  the  obstinate  energies 
of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  had  once  more 
rallied  under  the  banner  of  his  name.  Her  joy 
was  immense,  and  a  touching  delicacy  directed 
its  expression  to  Madame  Suard.  "  I  compliment 
you,  Madame,  and  share  your  pleasure  so  truly 
and  with  such  real  interest  that  I  feel  tempted  to 


CHARACTER   OF   SUARD  167 

believe  that  it  is  you  who  should  congratulate  me. 
At  least,  stand  persuaded  that  I  yield  to  no  one 
but  yourself  the  right  to  claim  for  Monsieur  Suard 
a  truer  affection  than  is  mine,  or  to  take  a  more 
tender  interest  in  all  that  touches  him.  Receive, 
I  pray  you,  the  tender  assurance  of  feelings  vowed 
to  you  for  so  long  as  I  do  live." 

Such  enthusiasm  might  certainly  astonish  those 
who  judged  Suard  by  his  works,  and  Grimm's 
critical  sense  seems  to  foresee  this  surprise  when 
he  writes,  shortly  after  the  election  :  "  Many 
decline  to  recognise  his  title  to  this  honour,  but 
all  who  know  him  are  persuaded  that  the  man 
is  its  sufficient  justification."  Suard's  name,  and 
his  real  ascendency  over  his  friends,  depended, 
indeed,  on  his  personality  far  more  than  on  his  acts. 
Tall  and  finely  built,  and  of  a  countenance  at 
once  noble  and  thoughtful,  his  natural  distinction 
rose  superior  to  the  airs  and  graces  characteristic 
of  most  literary  men  of  the  day.  He  fascinated 
by  an  irresistible  charm  of  speech  at  once  warm 
and  deliberate,  a  conversation  now  light  and  now 
serious,  ever  varied  and  never  pedantic.  His  wit 
was  fine,  and  his  discrimination  sure,  while  his 
kindly  and  sensible  nature  made  him  a  most 
lovable  companion.  "To  succeed  so  well  at  all 
seasons  and  on  all  occasions  is  a  gift  and  not  an 
art,"  writes  a  biographer. 

These  vital  qualities  explain  both  Suard's  power 
in  life  and  the  disdainful  indifference  which  has 
since  fallen  upon  his  name.  They  completely  won 
him  the  heart  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse.  His 


i68  JULIE    DE   LESPINASSE 

conversation  was  one  of  the  attractions  of  her  salon, 
and  his  kindliness  a  joy  of  her  life.  Their  friend- 
ship was  still  young  when  we  find  them  exchanging 
notes,  lightly  coquettish  on  the  one  side,  on  the 
other  almost  gallant — a  rare  thing  in  Julie's  corre- 
spondence with  her  friends.  "  Would  you,  were  it 
but  for  the  novelty  of  the  thing,  come  and  dine 
with  me,  that  is,  perish  of  hunger  and  boredom  ? 
Friendship  proposes  this ;  hatred  could  find  no 
more  cruel  invitation.  I  shall  be  truly  pleased  if 
you  accept,  but  your  refusal  might  still  be  a  stroke 
of  luck,  for  I  should  not  then  expose  myself  to  the 
disgust  and  weariness  that  my  circumstances,  and 
their  effect  upon  me,  must  inspire.  .  .  .  Farewell, 
and  may  the  goodness  and  kindness  of  your  nature 
supply  you  with  that  pleasure  which  you  will  not 
find  in  my  company."  "You  often  complain,"  he 
replied  in  like  mood,  "that  words  are  unable  to 
express  your  feelings.  You  would  wound  any  heart 
if  you  measured  my  words  so.  A  man  never  ex- 
presses his  whole  feeling,  for  that  has  a  thousand 
shades  which  find  no  form  in  words.  .  .  .  Alas,  you 
must  needs  be  left  to  guess  all  the  sweet  things, 
flattery  and  tenderness,  that  my  heart  feels  for  you. 
Yet,  believe  me,  there  is  but  one  sentiment  more 
real  than  is  mine  for  you,  and  that  is  the  one  senti- 
ment which  you  would  find  in  no  way  welcome." 

This  epoch  is  of  short  duration,  for  the  note 
soon  changes,  and  banter  yields  place  to  sad  and 
serious  confidences.  When  her  passionate  soul 
seeks  ease  in  confession,  Julie  unburdens  herself 
to  Suard  even  more  freely  than  to  Condorcet.  To 


THEIR    INTIMACY  169 

him  alone  she  can  speak,  openly  and  directly,  first 
of  her  love  for  Monsieur  de  Mora,  later  of  that 
which  she  justly  calls  her  "folly,"  the  passion  which 
saps  her  strength,  and  shrouds  her  last  days  in 
remorse  and  sombre  despair.  "  Good  God,  why 
is  one  coward  enough  to  continue  to  live  when 
all  hope  has  gone,  still  more  when  the  search  for 
happiness  discovers  neither  in  one's  self  nor  yet 
the  whole  world  that  wherewithal  a  life  may  be 
consoled  for  its  losses !  "  Suard  deserves  her  con- 
fidence at  all  points.  He  pities  and  sustains  her, 
and  often  argues  with  her,  gently  chiding  the  ex- 
cessive sensibility  that  "  upsets  your  works,"  the 
undue  pessimism  of  which  she  seems  rather  proud. 
"  I  left  you  unwell,  and  I  would  fain  believe  you 
free  of  the  excessive  physical  pain  that  weakens 
your  character  and  aggravates  other  pains,  danger- 
ously attractive  to  your  imagination.  You  fear  to 
find  yourself  well,  and  you  reject  the  consolations 
and  distractions  of  time  and  your  own  nature.  .  .  . 
I  know  well  enough  how  you  will  treat  my  remarks 
or  my  counsel,  but  I  will  not  hide  a  very  frequent 
thought  of  mine — you  are  falling  into  a  habit  of 
sad  ideas  and  lamentable  imaginings,  and  the  con- 
sequences frighten  me.  Why  will  you  not  listen 
to  the  voices  of  nature  and  of  friendship  ?  .  .  .  But 
what  profits  it  to  say — 'Be  of  good  cheer!'  Un- 
happiness  means  the  mastery  of  motions  stronger  than 
reason,  for  reason  points  the  way  to  cheerfulness. 
And  all  this  talk  just  shows  how  much  the  thought 
of  your  happiness  would  contribute  to  my  own." 
Doubtless  the  advice  proved  as  barren  as  Suard 


i;o  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

foresaw,  but  its  kindness  "touched  her  deeply,"  and 
his  friendship  was  a  stay.  She  tells  him  that  the 
affection  of  so  faithful  a  consoler  gives  her  courage 
to  make  an  effort  in  the  face  of  trouble.  Probably 
no  passage  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  contains  so  much 
emotion  and  tenderness  as  do  these  lines,  penned 
no  long  time  before  her  death :  "  What  profits  it, 
then,  to  love  ?  I  love  you  with  all  my  heart,  but 
that  will  never  advantage  you.  All  that  you  will 
ever  prove  in  me  is  the  pleasure  that  a  sensitive 
and  honest  soul  like  yours  feels  in  alleviating  the 
pangs  of  a  suffering  fellow-mortal,  an  unfortunate 
who  would  have  fallen  into  the  utter  slough  of 
discouragement  but  for  the  helping  hand  out- 
stretched by  your  kindness." 

These  effusions  are  the  fruit  of  real  feeling.  They 
are  in  no  single  word  suspect  of  that  banal  and 
factitious  sensibility  or  the  literary  emotionalism  so 
common  in  this  age.  No  further  proof  of  this  need 
be  sought  than  Julie's  tone  in  respect  of  others  of 
her  familiars,  not  less  deserving  or  devoted  perhaps 
than  the  two  men  of  whom  we  have  spoken,  but 
without  their  passport  to  her  real  heart.  The 
Chevalier  de  Chastellux  was  one  of  her  earliest 
as  he  was  among  her  most  attentive  friends,  and 
always,  in  her  own  words,  "entirely  kind  and 
attentive."  But,  despite  these  claims  and  qualities, 
her  feelings  towards  him  are  never  more  than  grate- 
ful ;  on  no  occasion  do  they  amount  to  sympathy. 
In  a  letter  to  Guibert  she  mentions  his  return  from 
a  long  journey.  "  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  him,  but 
if  I  could  have  added  to  his  absence  what  I  would 


CHEVALIER   DE    CHASTELLUX        171 

take  from  yours,  many  were  the  long  days  till  we 
should  meet  again.  Observe,  I  pray  you,  how  I 
reverse  the  order  of  the  days.  I  have  loved  the 
Chevalier  for  eight  years ! "  The  author  of  La 
Ftlicitt  Publique  was,  none  the  less,  no  guest  to 
be  despised,  and  the  most  critical  sought  his  com- 
pany. Chancellor  d'Aguessau  was  his  grandfather 
on  the  mother's  side,  and  he  was  commonly  said  to 
have  been  "dandled  on  the  knees"  of  this  redoubt- 
able ancestor,  from  whom  he  inherited  his  culture 
and  precocious  development.  Having  entered  the 
Service  at  a  tender  age,  De  Chastellux  was  a  colonel 
at  twenty,  and  took  part  in  most  of  the  campaigns 
of  the  Seven  Years'  War.  But,  soldier  of  some 
name  as  he  was,  his  heart  inclined  to  literature,  and 
his  convictions  to  the  Encyclopaedia.  On  this  high- 
road to  success,  he  travelled  fast  and  far.  Some 
scraps  of  prose  in  the  Mercure,  a  treatise  on  "The 
Union  of  Poetry  and  Music,"  and  finally  a  mighty 
tome  on  politics  and  philosophy,  constituted  a  claim 
that  needed  no  seconding  to  make  the  Chevalier  a 
man  of  fashion  first,  next  a  man  to  be  observed,  and 
finally,  in  his  fortieth  year,  an  Academician. 

In  some  respects  he  deserved  this  rapid  ad- 
vancement. Affable  and  "candid,"  upright  and 
reliable,  his  real  knowledge  and  quick  intelligence, 
joined  to  a  particular  gift  for  repartees  and  pictur- 
esque expression,  justified  his  name  as  the  most 
charming  of  conversationalists.  His  sayings  were 
current  in  club  and  boudoir  alike,  as  when  he  said, 
speaking  of  Diderot's  style  :  "  These  phrases  seem 
as  though  drunk,  and  set  on  pursuing  each  other." 


i;2  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

A  group  of  young  women,  discussing  passion,  are, 
he  tells  them,  "  like  the  idle  readers  of  travellers' 
tales!"  In  more  serious  moments  his  views  were 
often  original,  while  "streaks  of  illumination"  often 
flashed  across  his  talk  like  lightning  through  a  bank 
of  cloud.  But  the  mania  for  unmeasured  and  inces- 
sant puns  marred  his  undoubted  wit,  and  his  disser- 
tations toooften  suffered  from  obscurity  of  expression. 
"  The  wit  and  ideas  of  Monsieur  de  Chastellux,"  said 
Madame  Necker,  "are  like  the  dim  images  which 
appear  as  though  to  one's  eyes  at  the  mention  of 
any  given  name — a  tree,  mountain,  or  campanile." 

Julie  was  too  sensible  to  count  these  slight 
blemishes  for  sin  to  the  Chevalier,  but  her  annoy- 
ance with  them  is  apparent  from  the  way  in  which 
she  speaks  of  his  visits.  "  The  Chevalier  de  Chas- 
tellux has  determined  to  turn  my  head.  Yesterday 
evening  he  again  devoted  himself  to  me.  I  was  at 
the  point  of  death  when  he  arrived,  and  a  corpse  I 
remained  for  so  long  as  he  was  here."  His  pre- 
judices and  fixed  opinions,  and  the  violence  with 
which  he  was  wont  to  lay  down  the  law,  on  musical 
matters  in  particular,  also  offended  her.  His  assault 
on  her  enthusiasms  when  he  proclaims  Gluck's 
masterpieces  as  "absurd  and  detestable,"  stirs 
her  to  mingled  anger  and  pity  at  such  obtuseness. 
"Why  do  I  not  discuss  Orpheus  with  Monsieur 
de  Chastellux  ?  Because  it  would  be  barbarous  to 
discuss  colours  with  the  Fifteen  Score." l  What  is 

1  Les  Quinze  Vingts  =  Fifteen  Score  =  300  inmates  of  a  hospital, 
founded  in  Paris  in  1254  or  1260  by  SaintLouis,  for  "  300  blind  men 
whose  eyes  the  Saracens  had  bored  out  in  the  Holy  Land.'1  Since, 
a  hospital  for  the  needy  poor. 


HE    IRRITATES   JULIE  173 

more  serious,  and  prevents  Chastellux  from  obtain- 
ing the  affection  surely  due  to  his  devotion,  is  that 
Julie  suspects  him  of  affectation  and  artificiality. 
He  lacks  sensibility  also  ;  a  defect  which  does  not 
deny  a  kind  heart,  but  disenables  him,  she  says, 
from  the  capacity  to  understand  the  things  of  the 
soul  and  the  joys  of  the  heart.  He  is  vain,  and 
attaches  too  much  importance  to  trifles  "and  the 
world's  stupidities "  ;  he  professes  a  needless  ad- 
miration "  for  Court,  the  Princes,  their  rising,  re- 
tiring, and  vegetating"  Contact  with  him  often  fills 
her  with  a  dumb  irritation  hardly  to  be  contained. 
"  For  three-quarters  of  the  whole  time  I  cannot 
understand  the  Chevalier.  He  is  so  satisfied  with 
what  he  has  done,  knows  so  well  what  he  will  do, 
and  is  so  enamoured  with  reason !  In  a  word,  he  is 
so  perfect  at  all  points,  that  1  have  a  hundred  times 
felt  myself  utterly  mistaken  when  I  have  been 
speaking  or  writing  to  him.  It  has  been  on  my 
tongue  to  pronounce  or  write  Chevalier  Grandisson, 
but  that  would  imply  no  envy  for  Clementina  or 
Miss  Gleon.1 

Such  vexation,  due  to  the  intensely  dissimilar 
natures  of  the  couple,  is,  however,  confined  to  out- 
breaks of  this  kind,  discreet  whispers  in  a  friendly 
ear.  Julie's  conduct  or  attitude  towards  him  never 
betray  it,  for  if  she  is  sometimes  less  than  just  she 
is  never  ungrateful.  Chastellux's  real  qualities  are 
clear  to  her,  and,  when  occasion  serves,  she  is 
zealous  on  his  behalf.  His  dearest  hope  was 

1  Miss   Gleon.      Doubtless    Genevieve    Savaleye,   Marquise    de 
Gle"on,  an  intimate  friend  of  Chastellux. 


174  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

obtained,  thanks  to  her  initiative  and  persevering 
championship.  "  He's  very  pleased  with  me,"  she 
tells  Guibert  in  October  1774.  "  I  warmed  up  his 
friends,  and  things  have  gone  so  well  that  the  next 
vacancy  will  see  him  safe  in  the  Academy.  This  is 
no  doubt  his  due,  but  it  has  not  been  arranged 
without  an  effort.  The  keenness,  joy,  and  desire 
with  which  he  has  pursued  this  triumph  communi- 
cate themselves  to  me.  Fontenelle  is  right — 
every  age  has  its  toys."  "  How  proven  it  is,"  is 
Guibert's  sententious  reply,  "that  the  last  quality 
required  in  a  member  of  The  Forty  is  soul.  But 
since  the  Chevalier  has  wit,  knowledge,  even  some 
erudition,  and  has  also  written  a  most  worthy  opus, 
I  consider  it  an  excellent  action  to  have  assured 
his  succession  to  the  first  vacancy.  This  toy  will 
give  him  transports.  He  thinks  it  already  in  his 
hands."  The  death  of  Chateaubrun  did,  indeed, 
realise  this  hope  a  few  months  later.  Next  to 
Suard,  and  before  La  Harpe,  Chastellux  was 
among  those  to  whom  Julie's  influence  assured 
the  sweets  of  what  she  ironically  christened  "  im- 
mortality for  life." 

This  review  of  the  salon  of  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse  has  hitherto  noticed  men  alone.  But 
the  new  salon  was  ruled  under  a  far  less  severe  dis- 
pensation than  that  long  since  adopted  by  Madame 
Geoffrin,  and  the  circle  round  Julie  was  no  more 
confined  to  members  of  the  opposite  sex  than  were 
her  private  friends  men  alone.  Young  or  old,  fair 
or  plain,  some  claim  to  wit  was  all  the  passport 
needed  by  the  many  women  who  passed  her  doors. 


HER   MISTRUST   OF   WOMEN       175 

In  her  relations  with  the  majority  of  these — rare 
exceptions  like  Madame  Geoffrin  and  the  Marechale 
de  Luxembourg  always  excepted — the  hostess,  one 
must  however  admit,  exhibited  less  warmth  than 
their  masculine  compeers.  She  does  justice  to 
their  virtues,  appreciates  their  attractions,  and  is 
sometimes  stirred  by  their  more  tender  attentions. 
But  they  do  not  possess  her  heart  or  receive  her 
confidences.  With  them  she  is  always  clearly  re- 
served and  ready  to  doubt.  A  mere  breath  pro- 
vokes a  feeling  of  disquiet,  the  instinctive  retreat 
which  easily  degenerates  into  distrust  and  jealousy. 
Some  secret  instinct,  often  observable  in  women 
with  the  capacity  for  great  love,  fears  the  rival  in 
every  sister  with  whom  she  comes  in  contact,  no 
matter  how  exiguous  her  charms ;  an  instinct  that 
spoils  all  joy,  and  stands  guard  over  every  impulse 
towards  intimacy. 

Julie's  relations  with  that  Countess  de  Boufflers 
whom  Madame  du  Deffand  nicknamed  The  Idol — 
"  because  she  was  worshipped  in  the  Temple,  the 
home  of  her  lover,  the  Prince  de  Conti" — were 
of  this  kind.  She  was  one  of  the  most  attractive 
women  of  the  day,  and  is  not  to  be  confused  with 
her  two  contemporaries,  the  Duchesse  de  Boufflers, 
afterwards  Duchesse  de  Luxembourg,  and  the 
Marquise  de  Boufflers,  the  friend  of  King  Stanis- 
las Leczinski.  She  was  a  charmingly  pretty  woman, 
with  that  frail  beauty  which  is  often  called  delicate, 
but  lasts  longer,  and  contemporaries  record  that, 
at  almost  forty,  her  complexion  was  as  fresh  as  at 
twenty.  Her  quick  tongue  was  really  eloquent. 


i;6  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Often  paradoxical,  her  conversation  was  always 
ingenious,  original,  and  picturesque,  and  if  her 
argument  were  sometimes  daring,  its  expression  was 
still  so  chaste  and  so  loftily  expressed  that  a  hearer 
usually  forgot  the  sad  and  frequent  discrepancies 
between  her  words  and  her  acts.  She  was  honest, 
however,  as  witness  her  own  saying:  "I  would 
render  to  virtue  by  my  words  what  I  wrest  from 
her  by  my  actions."  No  one  thought  the  worse 
of  her  for  this,  which  was  merely  in  accord  with 
the  rule  of  the  time.  "What  concern  have  we 
with  the  spring  if  its  waters  run  clear  ? "  demanded 
the  Due  de  Levis.  "It  would  be  just  as  reason- 
able to  inquire  whether  the  doctor  who  orders 
moderation  has  always  practised  it."  More  open 
to  criticism  were  the  somewhat  subtle  and  calcu- 
lated qualities  of  Madame  de  BoufHers'  wit,  her 
trick  of  emphasising  words  to  which  she  desired 
to  draw  attention,  and  the  pause  which  claimed 
admiration  at  the  critical  moment  of  more  brilliant 
sallies.  "She  is  for  ever  preoccupied  with  effect, 
and  you  might  say  that  she  is  eternally  posing 
before  a  biograph,"  jeers  Horace  Walpole. 

Julie  is  aware  of  Madame  de  BoufHers'  failings, 
and  may  well  seem  to  insist  too  much  upon  them 
when  we  recall  the  latter's  real  claims  upon  her 
gratitude.  Constant  friend  of  Madame  du  Deffand 
as  she  was,  Madame  de  Bouffiers  was  one  of  the 
first  to  take  the  girl's  part  against  the  Marquise. 
She  did  not  break  off  relations  with  the  elder 
salon,  but  she  was  none  the  less  one  of  the  most 
frequent  figures  in  Rue  Saint  Dominique.  Her 


COUNTESS  DE  BOUFFLERS  177 
reward,  one  must  feel,  was  small,  for,  while  Madame 
du  Deffand  never  forgave  the  defection,  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  was  never  rightly  grateful. 
Yet  Julie  was  not  altogether  insensible  to  Madame 
de  Boufflers'  friendship.  "  I'm  truly  pleased  to  find 
you  here,"  she  writes  to  her,  when  they  have  not 
met  for  some  time.  "  I  feel  your  absence  on 
several  accounts,  taste,  custom,  and  habit  —  the 
last  the  least,  for  habit  is  no  more  than  our  sub- 
stitute for  feeling  in  matters  of  lesser  moment. 
Farewell !  I'm  extremely  anxious  to  see  you  again, 
and  you  are  mistaken  if  you  imagine  that  I  have 
been  content  with  your  absence."  Julie,  also,  is 
not  prone  to  shut  her  eyes  to  her  friend's  good 
qualities.  "  I  have  seen  much  of  her  during  the 
past  week,  and  she  is  truly  amiable.  She  was 
quite  charming  at  Madame  Geoffrin's  dinner  on 
Wednesday.  She  never  opened  her  mouth  but  we 
had  a  paradox,  and  her  defence,  when  attacked,  was 
so  spirited  that  her  unsoundness  told  as  smartly 
as  any  truth."  But  irony  follows  fast  on  this 
eulogium.  "  She  told  us  that  even  in  the  times 
when  she  liked  England  best,  she  would  never 
have  consented  to  fix  her  home  in  that  country 
unless  in  company  with  at  least  twenty-four  or 
twenty-five  intimate  friends,  and  sixty  or  eighty 
absolutely  necessary  other  persons.  This  need  of 
her  soul  was  communicated  to  us  with  much  serious- 
ness, and  still  more  sensibility."  Julie  scratches  to 
sharper  effect  in  this  passage  :  "While  I  lay  awake, 
my  thoughts  turned  to  Countess  de  BoufBers,  and 
I  wondered  how  it  happens  that  all  her  graces  and 

If 


i;8  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

attractions  still  leave  her  so  ineffective  a  figure. 
She  really  does  not  make  much  impression,  and 
I  think  that  I  know  why.  Everything  has  its  con- 
ventional truth.  There  is  the  truth  of  a  picture, 
of  a  play,  of  a  sentiment,  and  of  conversation. 
Madame  de  Boufflers  reaches  this  truth  in  nothing, 
and  this  explains  how  she  passes  through  life  with- 
out really  touching  or  interesting  even  those  people 
whom  she  has  been  the  most  anxious  to  please." 

Similar  passages  could  be  multiplied  almost 
infinitely,  and  it  is  not  very  difficult  to  discover 
the  cause  of  so  much  unkindness  and  sarcasm  at 
the  expense  of  a  friend  whose  faithfulness  was 
never  open  to  question.  Madame  de  Boufflers, 
forty-eight  years  old  as  she  was,  dared  to  flirt 
with  Guibert,  and  Guibert  had  not  seemed  in- 
sensible. This  is  the  unpardonable  crime  to  a 
passionate  woman,  and  not  for  all  her  devoted 
affection  might  it  be  forgiven  to  the  Countess. 

Julie  was  equally  cold  and  angry  with  another 
celebrated  friend,  or  if  her  displeasure  is  less  acute 
in  this  quarter  it  is  still  less  justifiable.  The  fame 
of  Madame  de  Marchais  has  scarcely  come  down 
to  us,  and  she  is  therefore  the  more  deserving  of 
a  moment's  attention.  Her  salon,  according  to 
Marmontel,  "  embraced  all  the  most  estimable  per- 
sons of  our  day,  and,  in  the  domain  of  culture,  all 
that  is  highest  and  most  distinguished."  The 
presiding  spirit  in  this  galaxy  was  a  delicious  little 
creature,  four  feet  in  height,  but  perfect  in  figure, 
and  of  ravishing  proportions.  Her  features  erred 
on  the  side  of  regularity,  if  at  all.  Her  hair  was 


MADAME    DE    MARCHAIS          179 

a  marvel,  and  her  eyes  brimming  over  with  fun. 
Her  teeth  "  were  much  in  evidence,  but  superb." 
She  dressed  eccentrically  perhaps,  with  enormous 
bouquets  on  her  head,  and  "all  about  her  person 
more  garlands  of  real  flowers  than  are  to  be  seen 
on  the  entire  corps  of  the  Opera."  Madame  de 
Marchais  was,  in  short,  a  curious  mixture  of  attrac- 
tion and  the  ridiculous,  but  that  her  intelligence  was 
extraordinary  no  one  ever  questioned.  Alert,  lively, 
quick,  and  pointed,  "one  might  say  that  her  very 
silence  was  full  of  animation,"  and  she  was  as 
profound  as  she  was  ready.  "  She  could  guess 
one's  thought,  and  her  replies  were  arrows  which 
never  missed  their  mark."  Yet,  with  all  this,  her 
nature  was  of  the  sweetest,  and  singularly  obliging 
to  others.  This  "young  fairy,"  as  Marmontel  calls 
her,  did  not  lack  for  admiration ;  but  her  heart 
owned  a  single  master,  Count  d'Angiviller,  Director- 
General  of  the  Royal  Buildings  and  Garden ;  and 
when,  after  fifteen  years  of  affection,  the  couple 
found  themselves  free,  and  promptly  married,  only 
to  be  mutually  more  dear  than  before,  this  pheno- 
menon obtained  them  the  just  admiration  of  all 
beholders. 

For  such  a  woman  to  forsake  her  home  and  the 
attentions  of  the  throng,  which  was  almost  a  court, 
around  her,  to  claim  an  almost  daily  place  in  the 
small  salon  in  the  joiner's  house,  was  certainly  a 
mark  of  friendship  which  Julie  had  to  acknowledge, 
and  everything  seems  to  show  that  she  appreciated 
it  at  its  worth  in  the  beginning.  But  it  chanced 
that  this  pleasant  lady  was  never  tired  of  admira- 


i8o  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

tion.  "  She  inspires  a  passion,"  sighs  Walpole, 
"and  has  not  the  time  to  cure  a  quarter  of  the 
wounds  that  she  inflicts."  She  was  scarcely  a  flirt, 
and  never  touched  gallantry ;  but  to  awaken  the 
tenderness  which  is  content  with  looks,  vague  hints, 
and  discreet  sighs  was  always  pleasant  to  her,  and 
from  the  day  when  Guibert  first  noticed  her,  still 
more  from  that  on  which  she  became  the  confidential 
critic  of  his  first  essays  in  the  drama,  Madame  de 
Marchais  was  irremediably  banned  from  Julie's 
good  graces.  It  is  interesting  to  see  how  promptly 
the  latter's  jealousy  assaults  a  disquieting  friend- 
ship, and  the  cleverness  with  which  she  at  once 
delivers  her  attack  on  the  most  susceptible  spot — 
the  vanity  of  a  young  author.  "  We  always  love 
our  admirers,"  she  writes  to  Guibert.  "  But  you 
should  certainly  tell  Monsieur  d'Angeviller  to  bid 
Madame  de  Marchais  hold  her  tongue  when  she 
asserts  that  the  two  first  acts  of  The  Constable 
are  pure  Machiavelism,  that  the  Constable  is  a 
detestable,  and  Adelaide  a  ridiculous,  part,  &c. 
Good-night.  I  wish  to  hold  the  exclusive  secret 
of  your  self-esteem.  In  return,  I  yield  you  that  of 
my  heart."  This  little  manoeuvre  was  completely 
successful,  for  between  Guibert  and  Madame  de 
Marchais  there  was  no  further  intellectual  traffic. 
Their  nascent  sympathy  was  similarly  suppressed. 
And  if  this  astonishes  any  one,  he  is  proved  but 
little  wise  in  knowledge  of  our  humanity,  and 
literary  humanity  in  especial. 

To  conclude  this  gallery  of  the  friends  of  Made- 
moiselle de   Lespinasse,  we   may  well  outline  the 


THE    DUCHESSE    DE   CHATILLON      181 

portrait  of  a  woman  toward  whom  her  feelings 
changed  in  an  inverse  gradation.  Towards  Emilie 
Felicite,  Duchesse  de  Chatillon,  Julie  was  at  first 
utterly  indifferent,  but  presently  felt  the  most  tender 
affection.  This  lady  did  not,  indeed,  enjoy  the 
dangerous  gifts  of  dominating  beauty  or  dazzling 
spirit.  Goodness  of  heart  and  an  almost  ingenious 
sincerity  were  her  chief,  if  not  her  sole,  charms,  and 
she  was  thus  singularly  unlike  her  mother,  the  delect- 
able Duchesse  de  la  Valliere,  the  friend  of  Madame 
du  Deffand,  who  was  still  notable  for  her  beauty 
when  she  might  well  have  been  called  old,  and  whose 
charms  are  celebrated  in  the  famous  quotation — 

"  La  Nature  prudente  et  sage 
Force  le  temps  a  respecter 
Les  charmes  de  ce  beau  visage, 
Qu'elle  ne  saurait  repeter." 

The  Duchesse  de  Chatillon  was  little  more  than 
a  child  when,  in  this  famous  mother's  salon,  she 
first  met  Julie  de  Lespinasse,  and  at  once  conceived 
for  her  one  of  those  girlish  passions  that  amount 
to  little  less  than  adoration.  Julie's  breach  with 
Madame  du  Deffand  a  few  years  later  made  practical 
demonstration  of  her  feelings  possible,  and  the  young 
Duchesse  found  no  care  or  attention  too  much  for 
her  friend.  N  o  devoted  or  loving  sister  could  counsel 
or  advise  more  devotedly.  Her  purse  was  ready  at 
need,  she  missed  no  single  opportunity  for  the 
finest  and  most  delicate  attentions,  but  the  lapse 
of  several  years  alone  won  her  more  reward  than 
a  rather  chill  and  reserved  gratitude. 

Julie    was     not    intentionally     thus     backward. 


i82  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

She  was  simply  incapable  of  constraining  her 
affections.  She  was  even  vexed  with  herself  for 
the  failure,  but  a  natural  human  weakness  merely 
turned  this  vexation  against  the  innocent  cause  of  it. 
"She  is  kindness  herself,  but  she  makes  me  cross 
with  myself.  She  thinks  that  she  loves  me,  and  the 
thought  prompts  her  actions.  She  is  kind  and 
honest,  but  her  head  is  as  hollow  as  a  pumpkin, 
and  her  soul  is  a  very  desert.  She  is  often  in  my 
way,  and  robs  me  of  my  own  thoughts.  Can  I  fill 
her  head  or  people  her  desert  ?  " 

But  Julie's  rebel  spirit  was  to  suffer  change. 
Suffering,  the  grand  instructress,  brought  her  to  a 
more  just  appreciation  of  such  faithful  loving-kind- 
ness. The  sweet  consolation  of  an  ever-ready  love 
triumphed  in  days  of  sorrow  and  utter  discourage- 
ment, and  Julie  welcomed  an  affection  as  delicate 
as  it  was  ardent.  "  I  should  think  poorly  of  myself 
indeed,"  she  then  writes,  "  if  I  did  not  love  a  person 
who  gives  so  much  and  asks  so  little.  If  only  you 
could  see  her,  or  hear  the  things  she  says  to  me. 
Such  affection  is  own  cousin  to  real  love."  Once 
the  ice  was  broken,  one  might  say  that  these  two 
souls  recognised  their  own  passionate  complements, 
and  that  they  flew  together.  Julie,  suffering  in  her 
turn  from  Guibert's  cold  response  to  her  flame,  cites 
the  Duchesse  as  an  example  of  true  compatibility. 
"  I  begin  to  believe  that  the  first  of  all  the  qualities 
which  attract  love  is  this  capacity  of  giving  love. 
You  need  not  argue,  for  no  imagination  can  con- 
ceive the  thousand  ways  she  finds  by  which  to  reach 
my  heart.  Friend  ...  If  you  loved  me  so !  ...  But, 


HER   FRIENDSHIP   FOR   JULIE     183 

no !  I  would  not  have  it  thus.  Heaven  keep  me 
from  twice  knowing  the  joy  of  it ! "  This  is  no 
chance  passage.  Page  upon  page,  in  these  days, 
express  Julie's  new  feelings  for  an  incomparable 
friend.  They  need  not  weary  the  reader's  eyes,  for 
those  already  quoted  sound  a  key  that  needs  no 
reiteration  to  convince  us  of  the  reality  of  a  tie  that, 
in  the  writer's  own  words,  "  is  the  charm  and  grand 
benefit"  of  her  declining  days. 


CHAPTER   VII 

The  foreign  colony  in  Paris  in  the  eighteenth  century — Success  of  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse  with  these  birds  of  passage — David  Hume — Incredible 
public  infatuation  for  this  man — He  haunts  Julie's  salon — She  intervenes 
in  the  quarrel  between  Hume  and  J.  J.  Rousseau — She  presides  at  the 
conference  which  dictates  Hume's  line  of  conduct — Consequent  dissen- 
sions in  the  Encyclopaedist  camp — Epistolary  war  between  d'Alembert, 
Rousseau,  Walpole,  Voltaire,  and  others — Generous  conduct  of  Hume 
— Other  foreign  friends  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse :  the  Marquis 
Carracioli,  Abbe"  Galiani,  Lord  Shelburne — Intimacy  of  Julie  with  the 
latter — She  professes  admiration  for  his  statesmanship. 

EUROPE'S  discovery  of  Paris,  and  the  discovery  of 
Europe  by  Paris,  are  two  statements  of  a  fact  the 
occurrence  of  which  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  of  some  importance,  and  had  far-reach- 
ing effects.  The  close  of  the  sixteenth  century 
doubtless  saw  a  certain  foreign  influx  into  Paris 
consequent  upon  the  two  Medicean  marriages  of  the 
French  throne,  but  this  infiltration  of  alien  elements 
was  highly  restricted,  and  really  affected  no  more 
than  the  actual  Court.  French  society  under  Louis 
XIV.  remained  almost  purely  indigenous,  thanks 
partly  to  the  country's  continual  struggles  with 
three-quarters  of  the  Powers,  in  part  to  the  rooted 
French  conceit  that  the  realms  of  the  Roi  Soleil 
were,  in  the  midst  of  Europe,  as  a  land  of  light  in 
the  heart  of  a  barbarian,  very  chaos.  This  lofty 
isolation  outlasted  its  chief  author's  reign  by  some 
years,  but  in  about  the  year  1750  the  Peace  of  Aix- 

la-Chapelle  seems  to  sound  a  silent  summons,  and 

184 


FASHIONABLE    FOREIGNERS      185 

Paris  is  forthwith  a  centre  towards  which  streams 
an  alien  horde — Russians,  Austrians,  Poles,  Danes, 
and  Hungarians.  Even  more  numerous  than  the 
visitors  from  all  these  nations  was  the  English  flood 
which  burst  upon  Parisian  society.  These  English 
were,  for  the  most  part,  men  of  cultivation  and 
breeding,  used  to  the  French  social  code  and  speak- 
ing the  language  fluently.  Their  consequent  cordial 
and  sympathetic  reception  led  to  renewed  visits. 
The  ''Paris  habit"  was  contracted.  Some  came  to 
reside  in  the  city :  the  city  pleased  all  alike. 

We  cannot  here  study  the  influence  of  this 
peaceful  invasion  upon  French  manners  or  ideas, 
but  something  of  it  is  clearly  visible  in  the  new  tone 
exhaled  by,  one  might  almost  say  the  rejuvenes- 
cence of,  the  salons  and  literary  circles  of  France. 
Men  and  women  alike,  the  Parisians  exhibited  keen 
interest  in  the  mental  habits,  the  point  of  view,  the 
judgments,  and  the  feelings  of  the  distinguished 
guests  who  so  enlarged  the  horizon  of  their  vision. 
No  supper,  evening  or  social  gathering  was  pre- 
sently complete  unless  it  were  graced  by  some  of 
these  fashionable  strangers.  They  were  sought  out 
and  entertained  as  well  as  men  may  be.  Madame 
Geoffrin  set  the  fashion,  and  her  home  was  for  forty 
years  as  it  were  the  central  meeting-ground  of 
Europe.  Other  hostesses  followed  more  or  less 
closely  in  her  train,  and  Mademoiselle  de  Lespin- 
asse  was  not  the  one  to  be  last  on  such  a  road. 
Julie's  supple  and  catholic  intellect,  and  her  know- 
ledge of  the  languages  and  literature  of  England, 
Italy,  and  Spain,  predestined  her  for  the  special 


1 86  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

appreciation  of  foreign  visitors,  and  one  might 
indeed  fill  many  pages  with  a  mere  list  of  those 
who  thronged  her  apartment  at  various  times.  Some 
idea  of  her  success  in  this  intercourse  can,  however, 
be  formed  from  a  brief  survey  of  such  of  them  as 
really  became  her  friends  and  left  some  mark  upon 
her  history. 

The  first  of  these,  by  date  no  less  than  from  his 
own  importance,  was  Hume,  the  famous  Scotch 
philosopher,  whose  position  as  Secretary  of  Embassy 
caused  him  to  reside  in  Paris  from  1763  to  1766. 
His  social  success  was  tremendous.  "  Those  who 
have  never  known  the  strange  effects  of  fashion, 
can  hardly  picture  my  reception,  by  men  and 
women,  in  all  classes  and  by  all  ranks.  The  more 
I  attempted  to  escape  their  excessive  politeness,  the 
more  their  attentions  overwhelmed  me."  This  is 
Hume's  own  testimony,  but  it  might  conceivably  be 
more  true  to  say  that  he  made  no  undue  attempts 
at  escape,  and  surrendered  at  an  early  date.  Anglo- 
mania was  then  at  its  height — a  fact  clearly  to  be 
seen,  says  Horace  Walpole,  by  the  triple  rage  of  the 
public  for  "Clarissa  Harlowe,"  whist,  and  Hume. 
It  was  impossible  to  attend  Court,  the  Opera,  a 
ball,  or  the  Comedy,  without  seeing  the  big  head  of 
Lord  Hertford's l  improvised  diplomatist  "  framed 
in  two  pretty  faces."  Champfort,  asked  for  news 
of  the  "lion,"  replied,  "I  think  he  must  be  dead, 

1  Lord  Hertford  brought  the  historian  to  Paris  as  his  secretary. 
Hume,  however,  was  not  officially  "  Secretary  "  except  between  the 
summer  of  1765,  when  he  became  "  Charge1  d" Affaires,"  and  the  winter 
of  the  same  year,  when  the  Duke  of  Richmond  was  appointed  to  the 
post. 


HUME  187 

for  I  have  only  seen  him  three  times  to-day."  Lord 
Marshall  asserts  that  "a  lady  is  in  disgrace  at 
Court  for  having  asked  who  he  is.  ...  She  must 
be  some  provincial,  just  arrived  in  Paris."  "  Hume," 
adds  the  same  witness,  "  might  apply  the  historic 
phrase  to  himself,  and  say,  '  Not  to  know  me  is  to 
confess  yourself  unknown  ! ' ' 

The  candid  vanity  of  the  historian's  letters  to 
Robertson  proves  that  he  was  scarcely  averse  from 
this  notoriety.  "  My  food  here  is  ambrosia ;  I 
breathe  incense  and  tread  flowers.  Indeed,  I  never 
meet  a  person,  a  woman  in  particular,  whose  con- 
science would  not  accuse  them  of  a  serious  lapse  if 
the  occasion  should  pass  without  a  long  and  pom- 
pous compliment  to  myself."  He  is  ingenuously 
pleased  by  a  visit  to  Versailles,  when  the  Dauphin's 
sons,  the  eldest  scarcely  eight  years  old,  ran  up 
and  delivered  a  torrent  of  hyperbolical  praise.  The 
youngest,  a  child  of  five,  forced  himself  to  lisp 
"  while  all  around  applauded,  a  compliment  got  by 
heart  and  imperfectly  remembered."  One  scarcely 
wonders  if,  after  this,  Hume  proclaims  Paris  the 
most  polite  and  enlightened  city  in  creation,  or 
considered,  as  he  records,  "  whether  I  might  not 
establish  myself  here  for  the  remainder  of  my  life.'* 

The  English,  it  is  fair  to  confess,  exhibited  some 
astonishment  at  all  his  enthusiasm,  and  more  than 
one  compatriot  smiled  in  his  sleeve  at  adulation 
sufficient  to  turn  the  most  solid  and  well-balanced 
brain.  Hume's  intimate  friend,  Lord  Marshall, 
warns  him  against  this  danger.  "  I  hope,"  he 
writes,  "  that  these  ladies  fair  and  grand  will  not 


i88  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

spoil  you  so  much  that  we  shall  get  back  a  dandy, 
a  dapper  man  at  the  embroidering.  A  flirt  taught 
Hercules  himself  to  spin  !  "  Walpole's  pen  is  dipped 
in  keener  gall.  *'  Mr.  Hume  is  the  one  thing  created 
wherein  the  French  have  real  faith.  They  are  wise 
in  this,  for  I  defy  living  man  to  understand  a  word 
of  his,  be  the  language  English  or  what  you  will. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Hume  is  fashion  in  the  flesh,  though  his 
French  be  about  as  intelligible  as  his  English." 
These  unkind  reflections  enshrine  a  partial  truth. 
Hume's  outer  man  was  far  from  brilliant.  He 
spoke  haltingly,  heavily,  and  with  embarrassment. 
He  was  coarsely,  clumsily  built,  and  his  features 
were  neither  refined  nor  distinguished.  His  moral 
qualities  were,  however,  on  a  very  different  plane. 
Of  a  lofty  spirit,  and  gifted  with  a  profound  intellect, 
his  judgments  were  sound,  and  his  conversation  and 
writings  both  bear  witness  to  that  capacity  for  real 
observation  which  joined  in  happy  alliance  the  vision 
of  the  historian  and  the  broad  perceptions  of  the 
philosopher.  He  was  no  less  correctly  praised  for 
his  upright  heart,  a  character  at  once  strong  and 
gentle,  constancy  in  friendship  and  reliability  in  all 
intercourse.  Adam  Smith,  one  of  his  best  friends, 
asserts  that  his  habitual  jests  were  simply  the  effer- 
vescence of  a  natural  kindliness,  and  a  gaiety  tem- 
pered by  delicacy  and  modesty.  He  was  never 
unkind,  even  in  the  slightest  degree  .  .  .  never  let 
fall  a  jest  intended  to  wound.  His  humour  amused 
even  those  against  whom  it  was  directed."  Every- 
thing in  him,  say  others,  testified  to  his  honesty 
and  loyalty.  In  the  exemplary  purity  of  his  life 


HIS    FRIENDSHIP   FOR   JULIE     189 

might  have  been  read  the  presage  of  his  serene 
death,  worthy  a  sage  of  old  Greece — a  moment  of 
which  this  is  related.  Being  at  the  very  point  of 
dissolution,  certain  friends  would  have  had  Hume 
hope  that  he  might  still  recover.  His  answer  was 
this:  "No!  no!  I  go  as  fast  as  any  enemy,  if  I 
have  one,  can  wish,  and  as  easily  as  my  best  friend 
may  desire."  Parisian  opinion  was  perhaps  more 
acute  than  that  of  London,  and,  moving  at  the 
instance  of  some  vague  feeling  of  his  real  superiority, 
have  been  as  really  justified  in  fact,  as  in  expression 
it  was  frivolous  and  out  of  all  proportion. 

Julie  de  Lespinasse  shared  the  contagion  of 
the  hour.  She  had  met  Hume  in  the  salon  of  Saint 
Joseph's,  where  he  made  his  first  entry  almost  on 
the  moment  of  reaching  the  city.  "  I  pride  myself," 
Madame  du  Deffand  was  afterwards  to  write,  "on 
having  been  the  first  to  pay  him  attention.  This 
is  the  single  ground  on  which  I  may  claim  to  be 
deserving.  .  .  .  The  charms  and  pleasures  offered 
elsewhere  have  borne  him  away  and  relegated  me 
to  the  rank  of  a  mere  acquaintance.  You  know  if 
I  am  vexed,  if  I  did  not  appreciate  all  his  merits, 
am  not  touched  by  them,  or  would  not  gladly  have 
been  called  a  friend  of  his."  The  application  of  this 
"  elsewhere  "  is  plain.  Madame  de  la  Ferte  Imbault 
says  that  Hume  fell  headlong  into  "the  magician's 
power,"  solicited  and  was  accorded  the  entry  in 
Rue  Saint  Dominique,  and  seldom  stirred  "from 
that  little  chapel."  Here  he  both  met  with  the 
most  flattering  reception,  and  was  not  backward  in 
testifying  to  his  appreciation  of  it.  But  he  was 


IQO  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

shortly  given  to  understand  that  his  priestess  and 
her  satellites  would  brook  no  divided  allegiance. 
No  backsliding  towards  the  neighbouring  shrine 
could  be  tolerated,  and  every  relapse  evoked  a 
smart  call  to  order.  "Yes,  sir!  "  writes  Julie,  after 
one  such  act  of  misconduct,  "  I  was  one  of  the  first 
to  recognise  your  work.  I  am  proud  of  it,  and  I 
sincerely  desired  to  be  your  friend.  I  have  flattered 
myself  that  we  were  friends,  and  I  learn  that  this 
is  not  so  with  the  deepest  regret.  .  .  .  Whether  or 
no  custom  licenses  or  tolerates  the  alliance  of  a 
friend  with  an  enemy,  I  cannot  tell.  I  do  know 
the  demands  of  friendship.  More  I  should  be  sorry 
to  know." 

That  Hume  knew  how  to  sue  for  pardon  is 
plainly  to  be  read  between  the  lines  of  the  coquet- 
tish note  which  soon  afterwards  sealed  a  reconcilia- 
tion. "  The  source  of  your  sighs,  the  charming 
Neole  (?),  commands  you  in  her  infant  treble  to  sup 
with  me  on  the  nth  of  this  month.  I  think  that 
you  will  not  dare  to  refuse,  and  so  I  leave  to  that 
day  the  expression  of  all  my  good  and  my  bad 
thoughts  of  you.  Ah !  how  long  it  is  from  now 
until  then  ! "  Or,  do  we  need  more  proof,  can  any- 
thing be  clearer  than  this  plaint  of  Madame  du 
Deffand,  the  abandoned,  to  her  friend  Horace  Wai- 
pole?  "I  am  truly  pleased  to  think  that  you  are 
unlikely  to  see  him  (Hume)  again,  and  that  I  never 
shall.  What  has  he  done  to  me?  He  displeases 
me.  Shall  I,  hater  of  idols,  not  detest  their  priests 
and  worshippers  ?  " 

Hume's   supersession    at  the    Embassy   by   the 


HIS    DEPARTURE    FROM    PARIS     191 

Duke  of  Richmond  in  the  summer  of  1766,  and  his 
consequent  return  across  the  Channel,  might  sunder, 
but  in   no  way  obscured,  his  friendships  in  Paris. 
Part  of  his    correspondence   with  Julie  has  come 
down  to  us,  and  clearly  proves  her  constant  thought 
of  him  and  her  real  grief  at  his  departure.      "  I  did 
promise  not  to  write  to  you,  but  I   feel  that  in  this 
I  promised  more  than  I  can  observe,  and  I  cannot 
resist  the  desire  which  is  upon  me.  .  .  .   Madame 
de  Boufflers  gives  me  hopes  of  your  early  return. 
I   would  that  the  moment  could  be  hastened,  and 
that   I    might  then  possess  you  without  fear  of  a 
second  loss."     This  occurs  in  the  first  letter  of  the 
series.     Only  a  few  months  later  Julie  writes  again. 
"  You  say  nothing  about  your  return.     Is  England, 
then,  like  Hell — a  bourne  whence  none  return?" 
A  year  later  still  sees  the  same  eagerness :  "I  am 
such  an  individualist,  and  yearn  so  for  another  sight 
of  you,  that  all  my  heart  prays  for  your  eternal  dis- 
grace."    Such  language  might  be  open  to  the  sus- 
picion of  mere  hyperbole  did  not  still  later  letters 
show   Julie  in  the  part  of  her  absent  friend's  hot 
champion.      Her  action   then,   in  delicate  circum- 
stances, proves  the  reality  of  her  feeling  better  than 
any  words  could   do.      There's    no  need  to   enter 
into  all  the  details  of  Hume's  famous  quarrel  with 
Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  for  the  story  is  already  only 
too  well  known.    But  Julie's  share  in  the  incident  has 
been  somewhat  obscured,  and  a  word  on  the  subject 
will  not  be  out  of  place. 

At   the   time   at  which   we  have  now  arrived, 
Rousseau  was  passing   through    the   most   critical 


192  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

period  of  his  career.  Severely  handled  by  the 
Parliament  of  Paris,  and  condemned  to  personal 
detention  on  account  of  his  latest  works,  Emile 
and  The  Social  Contract,  and  similarly  condemned, 
a  short  while  after,  by  the  Council  of  Geneva,  which 
also  burned  his  books  by  the  hand  of  the  common 
executioner — Rousseau  was  an  outcast,  wandering 
from  town  to  town,  and  country  to  country,  under 
various  names  and  disguises,  and  not  knowing 
where  he  might  dare  to  seek  refuge.  Countess  de 
Boufflers,  his  special  patroness,  now  obtained  him  a 
safe-conduct  under  which  he  was  able  to  return  to 
Paris  for  the  few  weeks  which  she  hoped  would 
suffice  for  her  to  secure  his  pardon.  He  was 
lodged  in  the  Temple  by  Prince  de  Conti,  a  man 
whom  Hume  was  accustomed  to  visit.  The  couple, 
thus  met,  conceived  the  closest  friendship — so  close 
that  Hume  carried  Rousseau  back  to  England 
when  he  returned  thither  in  1766;  obtained  him 
the  hospitality  of  his  Derbyshire  friend,  Davenport, 
overwhelmed  him  with  benefits,  and  finally  left  no 
stone  unturned,  even  to  the  exhaustion  of  his  per- 
sonal credit,  in  a  vain  attempt  to  obtain  a  pension 
for  him  from  the  King.  So  moving  a  spectacle 
naturally  had  its  effect  on  Encyclopaedist  circles  in 
France.  Every  eye  was  moist,  says  Garat,  at  the 
thought  of  the  English  historian  "  bearing  Jean 
Jacques  in  his  arms"  into  the  heart  of  that  happy 
isle  wherein,  it  was  whispered,  the  essential  pre- 
cepts of  The  Social  Contract  were  observed  in  fact. 
Hearts  grew  hot  at  the  thought  of  this  audacious 
innovator,  this  "  savage,"  this  "  republican,"  finding 


J.    J.    ROUSSEAU  193 

support  from  royal  hands  and  pensions  on  the  steps 
of  a  throne.  "  Hume  and  Jean  Jacques  could  not 
longer  be  thought  of  in  any  other  position  than  in 
each  other's  arms,  bathed  in  tears  of  joy  and  mutual 
gratitude." 

One  need  scarcely  say  that  Julie's  imagination 
did  justice  to  the  vision.  Her  passionate  admira- 
tion for  the  genius  displayed  in  Rousseau's  work 
transferred  itself  to  the  man,  when  she  met  him 
once  or  twice  during  his  brief  sojourn  in  Paris,  and 
not  d'Alembert's  caution  nor  Madame  Geoffrin's 
good  advice  could  moderate  her  fervour.  Her  first 
letter  to  Hume,  after  his  departure,  contains  a 
curious  proof  of  this.  The  Dauphin  had  just  died, 
freely  mourned  as  is  every  Prince  who  has  not 
reigned.  The  Encyclopaedia,  in  especial,  lamented 
this  untimely  death  as  the  end  of  all  its  hopes,  al- 
though it  is  not  easy  to  understand  exactly  why  this 
should  have  been  so.  Moved  by  this  illusory  idea, 
Julie  suggested  an  extraordinary  scheme.  Rousseau 
was  to  write  a  panegyric  on  the  dead  man ;  the  heart 
of  Louis  XV.  was  to  melt  at  this  effusion,  and  the 
philosopher  should  thus  be  received  back  into  grace. 
"  I  wish  Monsieur  le  Dauphin  to  be  praised  as  he 
deserved,"  she  explains  to  Hume,  "and  I  know  no 
man  in  all  France  who  is  as  able  for  this  task  as  is 
Monsieur  Rousseau.  He,  and  only  he,  can  instil 
into  such  an  elegy  the  warmth  and  interest  which 
will  move  sensitive  minds,  and  of  which  our  orators, 
our  poets,  and  our  philosophers,  are  incapable. 
Monsieur  Rousseau  may,  perhaps,  forget  the  fact, 
but  he  has  especial  reason  to  cherish  the  memory  of 

N 


194  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Monsieur  le  Dauphin,  for  it  is  known  that  only  a  few 
days  before  his  demise  this  prince  expressed  great 
interest  in  Monsieur  Rousseau,  and  his  desire  to 
dissociate  himself  entirely  from  the  persecutions  to 
which  he  has  been  subjected."  So  set  was  Julie 
upon  her  idea,  that  she  even  enclosed  with  her 
letter  a  species  of  draft,  personally  composed  with 
the  aid  of  d'Alembert,  "  to  serve  Rousseau  as  a 
nucleus  for  the  fine  things  that  he  is  going  to  say."1 
Hume  is  strictly  enjoined  to  "warm"  his  friend  to 
this  task,  and  Julie  concludes  thus:  "I  consider 
that  this  elegy  will  facilitate  Monsieur  Rousseau's 
return  to  France,  and  his  restoration  to  his  friends 
and  the  nation  which  mourns  his  absence." 

The  composition  of  an  elegy  in  honour  of  the 
most  "  churchy  "  prince  of  his  day  naturally  did  not 
appeal  to  the  author  of  The  Social  Contract,  and 
the  project  was  still-born.  Its  failure  seems  to  have 
in  no  way  diminished  the  mutual  good  feelings  of 
the  trio,  and  relations  were  continued  upon  the  old 
footing.  In  the  following  May,  Julie  received  from 
London  a  copy  of  "the  admirable  portrait"  which 
Hume  had,  at  his  own  expense,  commissioned  from 
the  engraver  Ramsay.  The  three-sided  honeymoon 
continued,  and  the  public  was  even  more  impressed 
than  before  when,  at  one  of  Madame  Necker's 
evening  parties,  d'Holbach  read  a  letter  from 
Hume  which  he  had  received  on  the  previous 
evening.  "  My  dear  Baron,  Jean  Jacques  is  a 
rascal."  The  company  was  duly  moved  at  this 

1  A  transcript  of  this  curious  document  will  be  found  at  the  end  of 
this  chapter.     See  page  211. 


HE   QUARRELS   WITH    HUME      195 

pretty  opening,  and  the  sequel  did  not  belie  its 
suggestiveness.  A  letter  from  Rousseau  to  Hume 
followed  :  "  You  are  a  traitor,  and  brought  me  here 
only  to  ruin  and  dishonour  me.  .  .  ."  "  These  two 
words,  traitor  and  rascal"  says  a  witness  of  the 
scene,  "exploded  in  our  party,  and  in  a  section  of 
the  capital  that  same  night,  like  any  two  cannon- 
shots." 

Violent  as  was  its  first  surprise  at  this  scene,  the 
resultant  disturbance  in  the  philosophic  world  was 
little  less  acute.  No  one  knew  anything,  but  imagi- 
nation was  not  to  be  gainsaid,  and  two  angry  camps 
were  soon  pitched  the  one  against  the  other. 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse's  letter  to  Hume, 
written  on  the  morning  after  the  theatrical  scene, 
gives  some  idea  of  this  electrical  atmosphere. 
"  Good  God,  sir  !  but  what  has  come  to  Rousseau 
and  you  ?  What  exact  deed  of  darkness  has  he 
committed  against  you  ? — for  after  your  letter  to  the 
Baron  there's  nothing  which  one  may  not  fear.  .  .  . 
If  I  did  not  hesitate  to  seem  importunate,  I  would 
ask  for  immediate  details  of  your  sufferings,  not  out 
of  curiosity,  for  your  word  is  enough  for  me,  but — 
the  simple  truth ! — in  your  own  interest,  so  that  I 
may  have  the  means  of  defending  you  against  these 
fanatical  Rousseauites." 

The  eagerly  awaited  post  arrived,  but  the  news 
in  it  was  not  such  as  soothes  excitement.  In  place  of 
facts,  denunciations  and  complaints  were  piled  upon 
each  other.  D'Alembert  did  not  exaggerate  in  the 
least  when  he  wrote  to  Voltaire:  "You  would 
laugh  to  hear  the  reasons  which  justified  Rousseau 


i96  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

in  first  suspecting, and  next  accusing,  Monsieur  Hume 
of  a  league  with  his  enemies.  Hume  talked  against 
him  in  his  sleep.  In  London  he  lodged  in  the  same 
house  as  Tronchin's l  son.  He  had  his  eye  upon  him. 
And,  last  and  most,  he  could  not  have  been  so  kind 
to  Rousseau  without  ulterior  designs."  The  truth 
lay  in  these  last  words,  as  Rousseau  himself  testified 
a  few  years  later,  in  his  cynical  and  astonishing 
avowal  to  Madame  d'Epinay :  "  Know  once  for 
all,  Madame,  that  I  am  vicious  and  was  so  born,  and 
that  it  is  impossible  for  you  to  imagine  how  hard  it 
is  for  me  to  act  rightly,  or  how  easily  I  do  wrong. 
.  .  .  You  smile  ?  To  show  you  how  entirely  truth- 
ful I  am,  know  that  it  is  simply  impossible  for  me 
not  to  hate  a  benefactor."  Jean  Jacques'  annoyance 
was  also  partly  due  to  the  feeling  that  he  was  a 
complete  failure  in  England.  D'Alembert  plainly 
says  as  much  in  this  letter  to  Hume :  "  You  have 
probably  not  given  its  due  attention  to  a  queer 
phrase  in  the  letter  of  \\\\s  pretty  little  fellow,  as  you 
once  used  to  call  him  :  that  the  'public,  at  first  much 
interested  in  him,  soon  began  to  neglect  him'  This 
is  the  real  offence,  and  he  visits  it  upon  whomsoever 
he  may.  You  undertook  to  exhibit  the  bear  at  a 
fairing.  His  booth,  at  first  so  popular,  was  presently 
unvisited,  and  the  bear  visits  this  neglect  upon 
you." 

Such  were  no  doubt  the  inward  reasons,  to-day 
they  would  be  called  the  psychological  reasons,  for 
the  strange  conduct  of  Jean  Jacques  ;  but  foolish  as 
he  was,  his  secret  irritation  would  probably  not  have 

1  Tronchin  was  a  mortal  enemy  of  Rousseau. 


CAUSE    OF   THE   QUARREL        197 

exploded  with  such  violence  but  for  an  incident 
which  disturbed  his  balance  and  rendered  him 
scarcely  responsible.  That  pitiless  jester,  Horace 
Walpole,  being  in  Paris  about  this  time,  took  it 
into  his  head  to  forge  a  letter,  purporting  to  be 
from  the  hand  of  Frederick  the  Great,  and  ad- 
dressed to  Rousseau.  Half  serious  in  form,  this 
missive  overflowed  with  malicious  and  excessively 
mordant  irony.  Under  the  plea  that  he  wished  to 
show  some  consideration  to  Hume  as  an  ally  of 
Jean  Jacques,  the  forger  first  confined  the  circula- 
tion of  his  work  within  a  few  Parisian  salons.  But 
the  general  desire  to  see  this  letter  in  Rousseau's 
hands  soon  induced  him  to  forward  it,  and  the 
victim  was  so  effectually  deluded  that  there  was 
afterwards  found  among  his  papers  a  long  and  em- 
phatic protest  addressed  to  the  King  of  Prussia, 
and  complaining  of  what  he  calls  "this  cruel  insult 
to  misfortune."  His  fury  and  fierce  thirst  for  ven- 
geance, when  he  learned  the  truth,  may  be  imagined. 
An  unfortunate  impulse  of  his  mad  brain  fastened 
the  guilt  of  it  on  that  most  improbable  person} 
d'Alembert.  Hume,  he  imagined,  was  d' Alembert's 
accomplice.  The  honest  and  ingenuous  historian, 
called  to  meet  this  astonishing  charge,  was  first 
utterly  confounded  and  then  as  wrathfully  indignant. 
Hume  would  have  been  better  advised,  however 
just  his  anger,  to  disdain  the  maunderings  of  Rous- 
seau and  pass  over  so  absurd  a  scene.  Madame  de 
Bouffiers  formally  told  him  so,  and  it  was  also  the 
first  counsel  of  Julie  and  of  d'Alembert,  who  stated  it 
plainly  in  this  joint  letter  :  "  Do  think  twice  before 


198  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

exhibiting  your  wrongs  to  the  public  eye,  for  quar- 
rels of  this  kind  often  have  no  effect  except  to 
further  excite  an  obstinate  fanatic,  while  those  who 
are  indifferent  use  them  to  revile  the  literary  world 
in  general."  D'Alembert  wrote  again,  a  few  days 
later  :  "  My  advice  to  you  is — Publish  no  single 
word  against  Rousseau,  but  wait  for  his  attack.  .  .  . 
Let  him  show  himself  the  utter  fool  that  he  is,  and 
worthy  of  Bedlam,  and  we  need  fear  nothing.  His 
one  desire  is  to  be  notorious  at  all  costs.  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  thinks  with  me,  and  so  do 
all  with  whom  I  have  been  able  to  discuss  the 
subject."  This  good  advice  is  only  open  to  one 
criticism.  It  arrived  too  late.  Hume's  letter 
to  d'Holbach,  repeated  and  discussed  in  every 
Parisian  set,  produced  an  effect  never  dreamed  of 
by  its  writer.  "  If  the  King  of  England  had  de- 
clared war  on  the  King  of  France,"  he  declares  in 
his  surprise,  "  conversation  could  not  have  seized 
upon  it  more  universally."  Jean  Jacques'  friends 
defended  him  by  spreading  reports  as  false  as  they 
were  unkind,  and  many  who  knew  nothing  of  the 
facts  never  hesitated  to  accept  these  perfidious 
statements.  Thus  the  scandal  grew  until  it  seemed 
impossible  to  remain  silent,  and,  on  Hume's  special 
request,  a  solemn  conclave  assembled  in  the  salon 
of  Rue  Saint  Dominique,  after  dinner  on  the  24th 
of  July. 

Turgot,  Morellet,  Marmontel,  Saurin,  Duclos, 
and  d'Alembert  thus  met  to  deliberate  under  Julie's 
presidency.  The  debate,  long  and  serious,  as  com: 
ported  with  the  gravity  of  the  occasion,  ended  at 


JULIE    MEDIATES  199 

last  in  a  formal  and  unanimous  resolution  which 
d'Alembert  was  deputed  to  communicate  to  Hume 
forthwith.  "  We  unanimously  resolve  that  the 
whole  story  must  be  made  public  at  once.  I  write  we, 
for  I  speak  in  the  name  of  us  all.'*  This  preamble 
is  followed  by  a  plan  of  campaign — a  detailed  mem- 
orandum on  the  style  in  which  the  facts  should  be 
presented,  and  the  tone  to  be  adopted.  "  Every- 
thing" is  to  be  set  out  "simply  and  directly,  but 
without  temper  or  the  least  acrimony.  There  must 
be  no  reflections  upon  Rousseau,  or  even  upon  his 
writings.  ...  I  am  ready  to  repeat  every  word  of 
this  before  Rousseau.  I  am  not  aware  that  I  have 
any  cause  to  complain  of  him  or  to  praise  him,  but 
since  you  ask  my  advice,  my  friendship  for  you 
requires  that  I  should  bluntly  tell  you  what  I  would 
myself  do,  were  I  in  your  present  position."  The 
letter  concludes  with  these  lines,  dictated  by  Julie 
herself:  "Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  to  whom 
I  have  read  the  whole  of  your  letter  and  of  my 
reply,  charges  me  to  tell  you  how  truly  she  loves 
you,  and  how  she  is  assured  that  you  must  at  once 
state  your  case  in  print." 

Hume  obeyed.  Suard  translating,  and  d'Alem- 
bert and  Julie  de  Lespinasse  acting  publishers  and 
distributors,  a  fat  pamphlet,  crammed  with  chapter 
and  verse,  called  upon  the  public  to  judge  a  purely 
personal  difference.  The  natural  consequences 
were  those  which  any  one  might  have  foreseen  in 
such  a  case.  Statement  was  opposed  by  statement, 
and  envenomed,  drawn  out,  and  enlarged  in  scope, 
the  quarrel  soon  set  by  the  ears  all  the  high  priests 


200  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

of  the  new  propaganda.  The  plan  of  this  biography 
does  not  allow  its  pages  to  be  filled  with  these  sorry 
details,  but  their  effect  upon  its  chief  characters 
needs  passing  attention.  And  the  spectacle  that 
it  offers  is  as  instructive  as  the  cause  was  puerile, 
for  it  needs  only  just  such  a  folly  to  lay  bare  that  secret 
mine  of  prides,  jealousies,  rancours,  and  petty  spites, 
from  which  life  sadly  proves  that  neither  the  greatest 
mind  nor  the  most  philosophical  soul  is  exempt. 

Walpole's  forged  letter  was  the  cause  of  the 
second  quarrel,  now  superimposed  upon  its  fore- 
runner. D'Alembert  was  extremely  annoyed  by 
hearing  that  Rousseau  believed  him  to  have  written 
it.  "Gracious  Heaven!  my  dear  Jean  Jacques," 
he  cried  ironically,  "  but  is  not  this  just  a  trifle  too 
much  !  However  a  man  may  desire  to  respect  your 
position  and  to  abstain  from  sneering  at  you,  he 
really  must  smile.  I  am  the  author  of,  at  least  a 
party  to,  Walpole's  letter !  You  could  not  be  more 
sure  of  this  if  you  had  seen  the  pen  in  my  hand ! 
And  Hume  and  I  have  plotted  your  destruction ! 
So  much  has  at  least  never  been  a  secret  to  me.  I 
congratulate  you  on  your  excellent  optician  !  "  His 
letter  to  Voltaire  breathes  the  like  spirit.  "Rous- 
seau pretends  that  I  am  the  author  of  the  letter  under 
the  King  of  Prussia's  name,  which  makes  a  mock 
of  him.  You  will  know  that  this  letter  is  the  work 
of  a  certain  Monsieur  Walpole,  a  complete  stranger 
to  me,  and  to  whom  I  have  never  spoken.  Jean 
Jacques  is  a  wild  beast,  who  should  be  viewed  only 
through  bars,  and  never  touched  except  with  the 
end  of  a  pole." 


WRATH    OF    D'ALEMBERT         201 

Leaving  Rousseau,  d'Alembert's  wrath  was 
turned  against  Walpole,  to  whom  he  owes  this 
absurd  "pother."  "There's  a  certain  cruelty,"  he 
writes  to  Hume,  "in  tormenting  an  unfortunate 
who  has  never  harmed  you.  .  .  .  Rousseau  is  obvi- 
ously a  quack,  but  one  can  abstain  from  his  drugs 
without  stoning  him.  Monsieur  Walpole  must  be 
eternally  reproached  with  having  made  this  poor 
creature  lose  his  head,  and  with  having  outrageously 
compromised  you — and  me,  even  though  I  do  not 
care  a  snap  about  the  matter.  I  shall  eternally 
laugh  at  quacks  like  Rousseau,  and  the  cowards, 
like  Monsieur  Walpole,  who  dare  not  attack  them 
openly."  Finally,  as  was  his  habit,  he  finds,  quite 
unjustly,  that  Madame  du  Deffand  is  the  source  of 
all  the  mischief,  and  denounces  her  to  Hume  as 
Walpole's  inspiration.  "  The  whisper  here  is  that 
Madame  du  Deffand  undoubtedly  inspired  this  sorry 
trick.  She  is  said  to  have  revised  the  letter  and 
furbished  up  the  style.  .  .  .".  Hume  is  less  certain 
of  this,  and  d'Alembert,  growing  violent,  commits 
the  supreme  indiscretion  of  dragging  in  the  name 
of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse.  "In  respect  of  my 
neighbour,  The  Scorpion  (for  so  I  call  her),  I  repeat 
that  she  is  a  jade  who  fawns  on  you  to-day,  never  for 
friendship's  sake,  but  solely  out  of  hatred  for  Rous- 
seau. You  are  the  dupe  of  her  shallow  duplicity, 
but  you  may  believe  that  she  hates  you  because,  in 
the  first  place,  she  hates  all  the  world,  and  men  of 
worth  in  particular,  and  next  because  she  knows  that 
you  are  the  friend  of  those  whom  she  holds  in  par- 
ticular abomination — not  but  that  these  repay  her 


202  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

in  kind,  or  rather  return  her  hatred  with  the  scorn 
which  is  its  due.  She  is  fortunate  in  having  to  deal 
with  so  honest  a  person  as  Mademoiselle  de  Lespin- 
asse,  a  woman  who  permits  neither  herself  nor  her 
friends  in  any  way  to  reciprocate  the  naughtiness  of 
this  woman,  but,  this  forbearance  notwithstanding, 
perpetually  seeks  her  hurt  per  fas  aut  nefas.  Yet 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  alone  saves  this  crea- 
ture from  a  torrent  of  rhymes  and  epigrams  which 
would  make  her  as  ridiculous  as  she  is  odious.  Let 
us  leave  such  refuse  and  return  to  Rousseau,  even 
though  he  be  of  just  the  same  kidney.  .  .  ." 

An  affair  of  this  kind  always  induces  the  last 
imprudence,  and  Hume  was  indiscreet  enough  to 
show  this  letter  to  Walpole.  The  latter  was  never 
the  man  to  suffer  an  attack  in  patience,  but  his  first 
attitude  on  this  occasion  was,  none  the  less,  one  of 
disdainful  aloofness.  "  I  despise  Rousseau  utterly, 
and  am  perfectly  indifferent  to  the  opinion  of  Parisian 
litterateurs  on  the  present  subject."  But  his  temper 
soon  rose  to  sharp  retort.  "  I  really  cannot  ima- 
gine why  I  may  not  attack  Rousseau,  if  he  may 
attack  every  government  and  religion.  D'Alembert 
may  be  annoyed  at  having  my  letter  attributed  to 
him.  He  is  within  his  rights.  Personally,  I  should 
be  more  than  annoyed  were  his  'Elegies  '  and  trans- 
lations from  Tacitus  to  be  laid  at  my  door.  I  am, 
however,  prepared  to  pardon  him  anything,  if  he 
will  only  refrain  from  translating  me."  After  this 
personal  defence,  he  takes  up  his  pen  on  behalf  of 
Madame  du  Deffand.  "  This  carrying  one's  hate 
of  a  blind  old  woman  to  the  point  of  hating  her 


SELF-RESTRAINT   OF    HUME      203 

friends  without  reason,  is  a  sad  and  miserable  thing. 
D'Alembert's  conduct  has  no  justification.  Madame 
du  Deffand  has  no  cause  to  love  him,  and  I  have 
only  heard  her  name  him  three  times,  but  never  once 
did  she  utter  a  word  against  him.  I  remember  that 
on  the  first  of  these  occasions  I  mentioned  that  I 
had  heard  him  called  a  good  mimic,  but  could  not 
call  him  a  good  writer.  She  replied,  with  much 
heat,  that  he  was  very  good  company  indeed." 

Aggressions  of  this  kind  continued,  to  the  ex- 
treme joy  of  the  gallery  in  general,  and  not  least  to 
that  of  Voltaire.  "  Is  not  this,"  he  cries  gaily,  "some- 
thing nearly  as  ridiculous  as  Jean  Jacques  himself? 
I  find  myself  as  deep  in  it  as  a  man  eating  a  supper 
to  which  he  was  not  bidden.  Our  pretty  coward 
complains  that  I  have  written  a  letter  in  which  I 
ridicule  him.  Before  heaven,  I  do  ridicule  him." 

Justifiable  as  were  laughter,  sarcasm,  and  tu 
quoques,  the  better  conduct  was  still  that  adopted 
by  the  two  friends  whose  souls  were  above  its 
meanness,  so  soon  as  the  first  outburst  blew  over. 
After  one  angry  explosion,  Hume  promptly  re- 
covered his  self-control — witness  the  eloquent  and 
entirely  spontaneous  appeal  which,  only  the  next 
year,  asked  sympathy  of  his  friends  for  the  ungrate- 
ful Rousseau,  and  besought  Turgot's  influence  on 
his  behalf.  This  plea  he  seconded  by  every  pos- 
sible means,  and  if  its  ultimate  success  gained  little 
gratitude  from  Jean  Jacques,  the  worthy  Scotchman 
at  least  won  Julie's  hearty  approbation.  "  I  have 
seen,"  she  writes,  "the  letter  which  you  wrote  to 
Monsieur  Turgot  on  behalf  of  that  unfortunate 


204  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Rousseau.  I  could  indeed  recognise  your  true  and 
humane  goodness  in  its  lines,  and  this  last  proof  of 
those  qualities  overpasses  all  that  has  gone  before. 
To  me  Rousseau  seems  proven  imbecile,  beyond  a 
doubt,  and  this  explanation  makes  it  impossible  to 
continue  our  surprise  at  his  treatment  of  you." 
This  epilogue  to  a  mean  tale  may  cover  all  that 
precedes  it,  and  the  biographical  pen  gladly  closes 
with  these  generous  words  the  history  of  an  alliance 
originally  no  more  than  a  daily  social  intimacy,  but 
in  the  issue  destined  to  prove  an  exemplar  of  noblest 
friendship. 

From  the  sage,  virtuous,  and  phlegmatic  Scotch- 
man Hume,  to  the  light,  noisy,  braggart,  and  de- 
monstrative Neapolitan  Caraccioli,  is  a  far  cry. 
Both  were  intimates  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse 
in  almost  equal  degree,  but  under  this  common 
appearance  it  is  easy  to  perceive  that  each  obtained 
from  her  something  in  especial,  the  counterpart  to 
his  own  qualities.  Hume  gains  her  heart  while  his 
rival  amuses  her  brain,  and  this  difference  finds  ex- 
pression in  the  terms  of  her  farewell  to  the  latter  on 
the  eve  of  his  transfer  from  the  Neapolitan  Em- 
bassy at  Paris,  so  long  his  home,  to  the  Viceregal 
palace  in  Sicily — "  a  fair  land,"  as  he  sighs,  "  but 
worthless  as  beside  Place  Vendome."  "The  am- 
bassador leaves  this  week,"  Julie  writes  to  Con- 
dorcet,  "and  I  shall  miss  him  greatly.  But  his 
departure  will  be  a  lesson  in  the  infinite  difference 
between  the  pleasures  which  pass  and  those  that 
interest  or  are  felt.  This  will  be  no  more  than  a 
negative  privation."  These  lines  are  not  to  be 


CARACCIOLI  205 

called  warm,  yet  the  Sicilian  diplomat  was  a  curious 
and  really  sympathetic  figure — a  man  heavy  in 
body  and  quick  of  brain,  scholar  and  buffoon,  now 
a  facetious  babbler,  and  next  moment  acutely  ori- 
ginal. He  had  made  for  himself  a  language  half 
French  and  half  Italian,  always  picturesque  and 
peculiarly  full  of  colour,  and  there  was  never  a  room 
but  his  fluent  tongue,  exuberant  gestures,  and  re- 
sounding laugh  were  perfectly  able  to  hold  the 
entire  company.  "  He  had  the  wit  of  four  men," 
says  a  contemporary,  "gesticulated  for  eight,  and 
made  the  noise  of  twenty." 

Caraccioli's  success  at  Paris  was  immediate,  alike 
in  society  and  in  the  salons.  "  You  cannot  imagine 
how  fashionable  he  is  here — a  second  edition  of 
Monsieur  Hume!  "  says  Madame  du  Deffand,  and 
she  immediately  adds,  "  I  don't  hear  the  three- 
quarters  of  what  he  is  saying,  but  the  loss  can  pass, 
for  he  says  a  great  deal."  Apart  from  occasional 
remarks  of  this  kind,  Madame  du  Deffand  was  at 
first  considerably  pleased  with  the  ambassador. 
"  This  person  is  something  talkative,"  she  tells 
Walpole,  "  but  he  is  good-natured,  direct,  and 
honest."  ..."  I  may  confess,"  runs  another  pas- 
sage, "that  I  find  Caraccioli  a  sufficiently  pleasant 
person.  He  is  straight,  kindly,  and  of  a  lofty 
nature.  While  wise,  he  is  also  a  buffoon  ;  a  man  of 
reason  and  character,  and  a  comical  fellow  who  can 
talk  nonsense  by  the  yard.  He  is,  in  fact,  a  mix- 
ture of  all  possible  ingredients — except  only  bad 
ingredients."  But  this  honey  of  Madame  du 
Deffand  is  suddenly  turned  acid.  "Your  Carac- 


206  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

cioli  calls  all  the  time,  but  my  taste  for  his  com- 
pany does  not  improve.  He  has  plenty  to  say,  but 
there  is  no  fruit  for  all  the  leaves.  .  .  .  There  is  no 
reason  to  object  to  him  as  an  acquaintance,  a  person 
to  meet  or  even  to  have  in  one's  own  house,  but  he's 
tiresome  and  a  bore — a  calf  s  brain  in  a  monkey's 
head."  Her  sarcasm  is  not  discomfited  by  the 
victim's  illness :  "  I  believe  that  he  must  shortly 
die.  He's  as  full  as  an  egg,  and  coughs  like  a  fox — 
Do  foxes  cough  ?  "  The  change,  of  course,  has  its 
explanation,  and  this  Madame  du  Deffand  provides 
in  the  single  line  of  postscript :  "His  venerations 
are  d'Alembert  and  the  Lespinasse." 

Julie's  reservations  in  her  judgment  of  the  am- 
bassador, noted  above,  must  not  be  read  as  meaning 
that  she  was  insensible  to  his  admiration,  or  was 
not,  at  least,  sensible  of  the  value  of  her  conquest. 
Her  flattering  sketch  of  him  proves  the  exact  con- 
trary. "You  will  not  easily  find  a  more  complete 
personality,  by  which  I  mean  that  the  ambassador 
unites  in  his  person  all  sorts  of  qualities,  and  all 
good  in  their  kind.  ...  His  perceptions  are  fine, 
definite,  and  very  just ;  his  infectious  gaiety  com- 
municates itself  to  all  the  company ;  he  is  a  facile 
talker,  and  so  amiable  and  kind  that  there  is  no 
need  to  inquire  whether  he  has  sensibility."  This 
final  phrase,  let  fall  as  it  were  by  chance,  is  a  reve- 
lation of  the  real  Julie.  "  Hot-headed  and  impul- 
sive, always  thirsting  for  tenderness,  any  suspicion 
that  another  lacks  feeling  or  is  careless,  robs  her  of 
her  ease  and  chills  her  before  she  is  well  aware  of 
it.  Her  secret  heart  nurtured  such  a  suspicion 


ABB£    GALIANI  207 

about  Caraccioli,  as  it  appears,  until  he  left  Paris, 
when  proof  by  absence,  that  touchstone  of  the 
affections,  revealed  the  ultimate  seriousness  behind 
the  frivolous  husk  of  his  daily  self.  "He  misses 
us  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart,"  she  then  writes, 
a  trifle  surprised.  "  His  letter  is  quite  sad,  and 
overflows  with  friendliness.  Tell  the  Duchesse 
d'Amville  that  our  estimable  ambassador  hid  larger 
sensibilities  than  he  wished  to  own  to." 

Among  the  numerous  foreigners  who  were  con- 
stant visitors  in  Rue  Saint  Dominique,  many  left 
their  mark  upon  the  social  or  political  history  of  the 
time.  Count  d'Aranda,  Count  de  Creutz,  and  Baron 
de  Gleichen  were  among  them.  Another,  the  Mar- 
quis de  Mora,  will  presently  claim  a  chapter  to 
himself.  The  gallery  in  which  these  names  have 
place  might  be  almost  indefinitely  studied,  but  room 
can  here  be  found  for  only  two  pre-eminent  person- 
alities. The  first  of  these  is  Abbe  Galiani,  "the 
little  thing  "  and  the  spoilt  boy  of  Madame  Geoffrin, 
worthy  compatriot  of  Marquis  Caraccioli,  and,  if  we 
may  so  put  it,  a  miniature  edition  of  that  large  man. 
If  the  Abbe's  boast  be  true,  he  was  used  daringly  to 
"  ramble  "  at  his  ease,  and  to  perorate  freely,  in  the 
severe  atmosphere  of  Rue  Saint  Honore",  under  the 
very  eye  of  the  old  mistress  of  the  apartment,  who 
was  indulgent  to  his  lapses  alone  ;  and  within  reach 
of  the  momentarily  unlifted  arm  of  Burigny,  that  mis- 
tress's lord-high-executioner.  It  is  easy  to  imagine 
the  audacity  of  his  paradox,  and  the  extravagance 
of  his  buffoonery,  in  that  other  salon  so  lightly 
ruled  by  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse.  There  he 


208  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

might  tell  any  tale  if  only  it  were  couched  in  re- 
spectable language,  and  his  most  futile  antic  was 
sure  of  indulgence.  He,  indeed,  conceitedly  relates 
the  story  of  "  this  ever-to-be-remembered  supper 
at  which  I  was  so  pleasing  by  virtue  of  my  sheer 
ogreishness,  establishing  for  fact  that  I  loved  only 
the  money  of  my  friends  in  one  kind,  and  the  beds 
of  my  friends  in  the  other.  .  .  .  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse  allowed  that  I  was  perhaps  sane  in  this, 
and  the  entire  Court  of  the  Philosophical  Parliament 
decided  that  a  gay  ogre  is  of  more  worth  than  a 
sentimental  bore." 

The  lively  Neapolitan  confesses  that  nowhere 
did  he  feel  himself  more  free,  better  appreciated,  or 
more  "at  home,"  than  in  the  "  crimson  salon  "  of  Rue 
Saint  Dominique.  Professional  jester  he  may  be, 
but  the  Abbe"  has  a  catch  in  his  voice,  hide  it  as  he 
will,  on  the  day  when  he  must  bid  farewell,  and  with 
no  hope  of  return,  to  the  delightful  circle — "the  joy 
of  my  life "  during  his  days  in  France.  "  I  could 
not  muster  the  courage  to  bid  you  farewell.  So 
here  is  my  good-bye,  and  do  not  forget  me,  for  to  a 
sensitive  spirit  that  is  no  easy  hour  which  for  ever 
separates  us  from  our  friends  and  those  whom  we 
love,  and  honour,  and  esteem."  To  his  exile  in 
Naples  he  reconciles  himself  "  as  the  fiends  to  Hell," 
and  for  many  years  he  continually  requires  news  of 
his  incomparable  friend.  "What  does  Mademoi- 
selle de  Lespinasse  ?  Her  dog?  How's  her  parrot, 
and  is  he  always  blaspheming  ?  She  can  see  how  I 
remember  all  that  touches  her ! "  Perhaps  these 
constant  sighs  may  sometimes  win  him  a  thought 


LORD   SHELBURNE  209 

from  her,  "  for  she  is  polite,  true,  has  a  happy 
memory,  and  reads  much,  and  I  was  once  a  book 
which  she  read  without  wearying." 

Notwithstanding  their  irremediable  separation, 
Julie  certainly  did  not  forget  the  Abbe  whose  antics 
and  sallies  had  more  than  once  lightened  her  bad 
hours.  She  kept  still  more  green  the  memory  of  a 
man  of  whom  this  same  Galiani  wrote  with  airy 
disdain  :  "  He  is  that  rare  creature,  an  amiable 
Englishman,  and  has  been  a  Secretary  of  State  in 
London,  quite  a  common  thing."  This  "  amiable 
Englishman  "  was  William  Petty,  Count  Shelburne, 
afterwards  Marquis  of  Lansdowne,  the  leader  of 
the  Opposition  since  Pitt  retired  from  Parliament. 
During  a  visit  to  Paris  in  the  summer  and  autumn 
of  1774,  he  was  powerfully  attracted  to  Julie.  The 
attraction  proved  mutual,  and  the  pair  met  almost 
daily,  whether  during  intimate  calls  or  at  social 
gatherings  in  which,  their  feelings  being  known  to 
all,  the  company  contrived  to  throw  them  together. 
"He  leaves  in  a  week,  and  I  am  heartily  glad  of  it," 
cries  Julie,  worn  out,  "  for  he  is  the  reason  of  my 
having  dined  daily  with  a  party  of  fifteen.  ...  I 
want  rest,  for  my  works  are  run  down." 

This  complaint  need  not  be  taken  too  literally, 
but  we  may  rather  believe  this  deliberate  judgment 
on  Lord  Shelburne  :  "  I  have  seen  much  of  him,  and 
I  have  listened  to  him.  He  has  spirit,  fire,  and  a 
high  tone.  He  reminds  me  somewhat  of  the  two 
men  whom  I  have  loved,1  and  for  whom  I  would 
live  or  die."  Her  enthusiasm  is  such  "that  she  shares 

1  Count  Guibert  and  the  Marquis  de  Mora. 

0 


210  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

it  with  all  the  world,"  writes  Morellet,  and  that  with 
those  "energetic  expressions"  of  which  she  has  the 
habit  whenever  her  heart  is  moved.  Writing  to 
Lord  Shelburne  himself,  Morellet  touches  nicely 
enough  on  the  origin  of  this  sympathy.  "  I  should 
tell  you,  if  only  to  drop  your  conceit  a  point,  that 
your  chief  attraction  for  her  is  the  quality  with  which 
her  friends  always  reproach  her — ardent  and  insati- 
able activity,  a  fire  and  vehemence  of  the  affections 
which  devour  and  consume.  These  things  she 
found  in  you,  and  so  she  loves  her  own  faults  in  you. 
We  others,  cold  and  wise  people,  call  this  horrible 
and  fatal,  but  it  is  futile  to  suppose  that  either  of  you 
are  capable  of  reformation.  Therefore,  as  gluttons 
bidden  to  the  feast  of  him  whose  ruin  provides  their 
meat,  we  devour  all  and  make  good  cheer,  saying, 
'  This  man  runs  fast  to  ruin,  and  his  table  shall  not 
long  be  spread  thus.' " 

Rapid  intimacy  between  the  pair  was  doubtless  the 
fruit  of  such  a  similarity  in  character,  but  Julie  took 
a  particular  interest  in  Shelburne's  political  capacity. 
Her  curiosity  was  almost  passionately  aroused  by  this 
minister  of  yesterday  and  again-to-be  minister  to- 
morrow— the  leader  of  a  great  party  in  a  free  state  ; 
the  generous  politician  whose  care  was  for  the  general 
good  rather  than  his  own  pleasures  and  personal 
advantage.  "  Do  you  know,"  she  writes  to  a  friend, 
"  how  he  rests  his  head  and  his  soul  after  the  fatigues 
of  a  government  ? — by  deeds  of  well-doing  worthy 
a  sovereign ;  by  creating  opportunities  for  the  free 
education  of  his  tenantry  ;  by  personally  entering 
into  the  smallest  details  of  their  instruction  and 


JULIE    AS   POLITICIAN  211 

welfare !  This  is  how  a  man  of  thirty-four  finds 
relaxation,  a  man  whose  soul  is  as  sensitive  as  it  is 
strong.  .  .  .  What  a  distance  between  such  an  one 
and  a  Frenchman,  our  pretty  gentlemen  at  Court ! " 
From  this  contrast  between  men,  she  unhesitatingly 
passes  to  the  contrasted  conditions  under  which  men 
live  in  the  two  countries.  "  Certainly,  President  de 
Montesquieu  knew  what  he  said  in — The  Govern- 
ment makes  the  man.  In  this  country,  a  man  with 
any  energy,  high  standards,  or  genius,  is  like  the 
caged  lion  in  a  menagerie.  He  feels  his  power  as  a 
torture ;  he  is  like  a  Patagonian  compelled  to  walk 
on  his  knees! " 

These  reflections  on  Lord  Shelburne  show  us 
Julie  in  quite  a  new  light,  for  such  language  reveals 
a  class  of  women  rare  enough  at  this  time — the 
woman  with  "a  citizen's  soul,"  loving  liberty,  an- 
hungered for  reforms,  carrying  into  public  life  the 
same  impetuous  heat,  perhaps  also  the  same  chi- 
merical illusions,  which  are  her  habit  in  the  matters 
of  private  life.  Those  who  are  interested  in  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  may  do  worse  than  devote  a 
moment  to  this  side  of  her  character. 

NOTE  TO  PAGE  194. 
Portrait  of  the  Dauphin  by  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse. 

This  document  was  enclosed  with  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse's 
letter  of  February  23rd,  1766,  to  David  Hume,  and  is  printed  in  the 
volume  "  Letters  of  Eminent  Persons  addressed  to  David  Hume"  : 

"  i.  Monsieur  le  Dauphin's  earlier  studies  did  not  bear  such  fruit 
as  might  have  been  expected  from  his  disposition  and  prodigious 
memory.  After  his  first  marriage,  he  recommenced  his  studies  with 
the  greatest  assiduity,  and  devoured  every  conceivable  work  in  belles 


212  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

lettres.  Horace  and  Virgil  he  preferred  among  the  poets  ;  but  Cicero 
and  Boileau  he  knew  by  heart.  Horace  he  loved.  His  liking  for 
Homer  led  him  to  commence  the  study  of  the  Greek  language,  but  he 
did  not  pursue  this  for  any  distance.  It  was  from  it,  however,  that  he 
contracted  a  taste  for  the  English  language — a  tongue  in  which  he  was 
sufficiently  proficient  at  the  time  of  his  decease  to  be  able  to  read 
Pope's  translations  from  Homer.  His  lack  of  Greek  scholarship  was 
his  lasting  regret.  He  was  perfected  in  the  Latin  tongue,  and  was  at 
one  time  able  to  write  it  well.  He  was  well  grounded  in  Spanish,  and 
slightly  in  Italian.  Of  German  he  had  no  more  than  a  smattering,  but 
he  began  this  study,  and  only  abandoned  it,  I  believe,  when  he  found 
himself  out  of  sympathy  with  those  German  authors  on  whose  works 
he  commenced. 

"2.  I  never  heard  Monsieur  le  Dauphin  speak  of  the  modern 
philosophers,  but  I  know  that  he  was  aware  of  the  writings  of  many  of 
these,  and  that  he  esteemed  them.  He  had  little  sympathy  for  the 
moral  doctrines  imputed  to  them,  but  being  a  complete  man  of  the 
world  he  never  entirely  credited  all  that  he  heard  on  this  score.  His 
spirit  certainly  inclined  to  philosophy  at  all  times.  During  his  illness, 
he  made  a  constant  study  of '  Locke  on  the  Human  Understanding,' 
and  his  choice  of  books  was  an  index  to  the  condition  of  his  health  at 
this  time.  Thus  he  turned  from  Locke  to  belles  lettres  as  his  health 
declined,  and  returned  to  Locke  as  it  improved.  I  am  not  aware 
whether  or  no  he  read  Bolingbroke,  Sidney,  &c.,  but  I  believe  that  he 
did.  I  am  certain  that  he  read  '  L' Esprit  des  Lois,'  pen  in  hand,  and 
that  he  was  generally  conversant  with  all  the  chief  works  upon  Legis- 
lation, Public  Rights,  Politics,  and  so  forth. 

"  3.  I  have  no  certain  knowledge  of  his  political  leanings,  for  he 
was  signally  reserved  despite  his  geniality.  His  respect  for  the  law 
was  extended  to  the  persons  of  the  magistracy — such  of  its  members, 
at  least,  as  kept  within  their  station  and  were  faithful  ensuers  of  their 
functions.  I  can  believe  that  he  would  have  stood  fast  for  authority, 
but  that  he  would  have  wielded  his  own  authority  with  a  gentle  hand. 
Kindness,  ease,  and  gaiety  were  distinguishing  traits  of  his  spirit  and 
intellect.  His  death  bears  sufficient  witness  to  the  fact  of  his  courage. 
"4.  He  was  profoundly,  sincerely,  and  convincedly  religious.  He 
had  studied  the  subject  from  all  sides,  not  excluding  those  of  its  relative 
power  for  good  and  harm  upon  the  masses.  He  left  an  exhaustive 
monograph  upon  this  subject,  but  Madame  la  Dauphine  keeps  this 
private.  His  gentle  religion  fell  severely  on  none  but  himself,  for  the 
narrowness  of  bigotry  was  unknown  to  him.  Thus  all  the  world  went 
astray  in  its  opinion  of  him — the  priests  believed  that  he  was  for  them, 
when  religion  was  his  single  care ;  the  philosophers  believed  him  a 
fanatic,  when  he  would  never  have  restrained  any  man  in  his  opinions, 
if  only  they  were  kept  within  the  boimds  of  wisdom,  and  would  still 


PORTRAIT   OF   THE    DAUPHIN     213 

less  have  become  a  persecutor.  His  character  and  principles  were 
both  the  reverse  of  these  ideas.  He  praised  Saint  Louis  for  his  re- 
sistance to  the  Pope's  attempts  to  encroach  upon  his  royal  authority, 
and  certainly  no  priest  would  ever  have  encroached  upon  his  own.  He 
was  addicted  to  no  petty  religious  observances.  Never,  in  all  his  long 
illness,  was  he  guilty  of  a  mean  temper.  His  religion  was  on  the  grand 
model,  to  himself  all,  to  the  world  simplicity  and  strength  ; — a  strength 
indeed  and  a  joyousness  known  to  few  ;  a  kindness  and  a  sweetness  of 
disposition  which  nothing  could  alter.  This  simplicity,  this  force,  and 
this  noble  resignation,  have  made  men  say  that  he  died  a  philosopher. 
Certainly  none  ever  died  more  bravely." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  and  politics — Curious  mixture  of  utopianism  and 
pessimism — Her  feeling  for  Turgot — Julie's  ideas  and  tastes  in  music  and 
literature — Her  intimate  life — Her  horror  of  all  change — Relations  with 
her  family — Regular  correspondence  with  Abel  de  Vichy — She  plays  the 
mother  to  her  brother — Her  wise  advice  to  him — Her  sad  confidences  to 
him  in  respect  of  her  poverty — Growing  discouragement  of  her  last 
years. 

MADEMOISELLE  DE  LESPINASSE  certainly  did  not 
acquire  her  taste  for  politics  from  Madame  du 
Deffand  or  Madame  Geoffrin,  for  the  former  pro- 
fessed an  ironical  indifference  to  their  claims,  while 
the  latter  held  herself  almost  fearfully  aloof.  Julie, 
on  the  contrary,  was  always  intensely  interested  in 
the  higher  problems  of  government,  which  she 
studied  with  evident  satisfaction  to  herself,  but 
always  rather  from  the  theoretical  than  the  prac- 
tical standpoint.  In  common  with  the  majority 
of  her  contemporaries,  the  idea  to  her  is  more  im- 
portant than  the  thing,  while  she  can  never  resist  the 
appeal  of  a  formula  or  the  magic  of  a  phrase.  In  so 
far  as  her  letters  give  a  clue  to  her  real  ideas,  her 
ideal  seems  more  or  less  that  which  served  to  guide 
the  earlier  theorists  of  the  Revolution,  fifteen  years 
after  her  death ;  liberty  in  all  its  forms,  republican- 
ism in  fact,  but  under  a  monarchical  system,  which 
should  make  every  public  office  electoral,  and  give 
a  voice  to  all  degrees. 

Her  positive  ideas  may  have  been  vague ;  her 


JULIE'S   REPUBLICANISM          215 

antipathies  were  extremely  definite.  Absolutism 
evokes  her  constant  disapproval,  scorn,  denuncia- 
tion even.  "How  can  one  live  under  this  govern- 
ment, and  not  despair  ?  "  is  a  phrase  repeated  under 
a  thousand  variants,  and  this  hatred  of  despotism  is 
not  confined  to  her  own  country.  It  ignores  race 
or  frontier,  and,  in  the  case  of  certain  neighbouring 
countries,  inspires  judgments  of  really  singular 
harshness  and  virulence.  Russia  is  a  particular 
object  of  her  rage.  Catherine  the  Great's  careful 
attentions  to  the  Encyclopaedia  and  the  leading 
French  philosophers  may  blind  Diderot,  Voltaire, 
Grimm,  d'Alembert  even.  They  are  powerless  to 
move  the  wrath  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse. 
"  What  will  you  see  there  ? "  she  asks  Guibert,  on 
the  eve  of  his  departure  for  Saint  Petersburg. 
"All  that  a  man  should  flee,  and  of  which  his  life 
should  be  able  to  escape  the  knowledge.  You  will 
see  the  things  detested  of  your  soul,  slavery  and 
tyranny,  servility  and  insolence.  You  will,  I  know, 
be  able  to  say — This  is  as  it  is  with  us  only  too 
often.  But  our  vices  are  weakened  by  our  very 
defects  ;  in  that  country,  excessive  misfortune  alone 
tempers  excessive  corruption  and  baseness." 

Julie's  mingled  envy  and  admiration  for  the 
English  Constitution  is  a  natural  result  of  this 
temper,  and  she  proclaims  her  approval  in  terms 
which  might  be  open  to  the  charge  of  most  un- 
patriotic bias,  did  not  her  ardent  nature  often  lead 
her  pen  thus  far  in  advance  of  her  thought.  "  For 
myself,  feeble  and  unfortunate  creature  that  I  am, 
had  I  to  live  again  I  would  rather  be  born  the 


216  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

humblest  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  than 
even  King  of  Prussia.  Indeed,  to  gain  the  glories 
of  Voltaire  alone,  would  I  consent  to  be  reborn  to 
any  heritage  but  that  of  an  Englishwoman."  Wher- 
ever she  compares  England  and  France,  and  this  is 
at  all  points,  the  verdict  is  always  for  the  former 
country,  and  towards  the  end  of  her  life,  she  seems 
to  have  fallen  into  the  toils  of  that  spirit  of  parti- 
sanship and  bitter  pessimism  which  times  of  trouble 
so  easily  invest  with  all  the  appearance  of  prophetic 
instinct.  Thus  when,  on  the  day  of  Louis's  XV's 
death,  Morellet  met  and  communicated  this  news  to 
"  a  carriage-full  of  friends  "  returning  from  Auteuil, 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  leaned  out  of  the 
window  and  interrupted  the  general  exchange  of 
congratulations  with  a  tragic — "  My  dear  Abbe,  far 
worse  is  yet  to  come!"  Morellet  remarks,  "We 
considered  that  she  was  very  pessimistic  then,  but 
afterwards,  in  the  midst  of  the  Revolution,  those 
who  had  witnessed  this  incident  were  prone  to 
invest  her  words  with  prophetic  significance." 

Even  when  the  supreme  direction  of  affairs  was 
placed  in  philosophical  hands  by  the  inclusion  in  the 
Ministry  of  Turgot  and  Malesherbes — the  first,  her 
"  friend  of  seventeen  years,"  and  the  latter  more 
newly,  but  little  less  intimately  so — the  event,  which 
should  seemingly  have  crowned  her  hopes,  cannot 
at  first  scatter  her  doubts  or  dissipate  her  mournful 
previsions.  "  There  is  so  much  news,  excitement, 
and  rejoicing,"  she  writes  to  Guibert,  "that  one 
knows  not  to  whom  to  listen.  I  would  fain  feel 
happy,  but  that  seems  impossible."  Two  days  later 


TURGOT  217 

she  writes  again :  "  Rejoicings  are  general,  but 
there  is  this  difference  between  my  temper  and  the 
spirit  of  all  around  me :  they  are  in  transports  of 
joy  over  their  new  hopes  ;  I  can  only  continue  to 
breathe  the  misfortunes  from  which  we  are  newly 
delivered."  "  If  he  cannot  bring  good  to  pass," 
she  writes  of  Turgot,  yet  a  little  later,  "  we  shall 
not  be  Big  John  as  heretofore,  but  a  thousand  times 
more  unhappy  by  reason  of  the  hope  which  is  taken 
from  us."  These  extracts  give  an  idea  of  the  pro- 
gressive alteration  in  her  temper,  a  progress  in 
despite  of  herself,  we  may  almost  say.  Slowly  and 
very  gradually,  the  honesty  of  the  new  ministers 
and  their  evident  good  intentions  lead  her  to  feel 
that  they  may  be  able  to  carry  out  the  most 
pressing  reforms.  Turgot  she  can  now  call  "  an 
excellent  man.  If  he  can  keep  his  place,  he  will 
be  the  nation's  idol.  He  is  possessed  by  a  desire 
for  the  public  good,  and  he  lavishes  himself  to  that 
end."  Her  chief  hope  lies  in  the  union  of  the  two 
friends,  now  fellows  in  office,  and  when  Guibert 
doubts,  "  You  would  have  all  the  trouble  in  the 
world  to  put  two  wills  into  their  two  heads,"  she 
replies,  "  They  have  one  will  and  one  only — to  do 
the  best  that  is  possible.  Assuredly  I  love  them, 
though  the  right  word  would  be  even  stronger,  and 
I  respect  them  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart.  .  .  . 
Truly,"  she  adds  a  little  later,  "that  which  is  is 
beyond  the  best  which  might  have  been  hoped,  and 
was  impossible  to  forecast.'* 

So  unforeseen  a  change  from  darkness  to  hope 
in    the   mind    of   Mademoiselle   de    Lespinasse  is, 


ai8  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

perhaps,  to  be  read  in  conjunction  with  a  remem- 
brance of  the  very  special  attitude  of  these  ministers 
towards  herself.  She  undoubtedly  enjoyed  much 
influence  with  them,  and  it  may  well  have  been  a 
factor  in  dissipating  her  fears.  "We  are  to  be 
governed  by  philosophers,"  sneered  Madame  du 
Deffand,  "and  I  certainly  regret  my  failure  to 
secure  their  protection.  The  one  road  to  that 
now  lies  through  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse. 
Am  I  to  take  it?"  Their  elevation  to  power 
certainly  did  not  relax  the  earlier  ties  between 
the  two  statesmen  and  their  intelligent  friend,  and 
they  willingly  and  most  courteously  defer  to  her 
opinion.  Turgot  continues  to  spend  long  hours 
in  her  company,  discussing  his  projects,  asking 
her  advice,  and  listening  to  her  criticism  with 
that  "  completeness  "  and  simplicity  which  he  used 
when,  she  says,  "he  submitted  his  efforts  at  versi- 
fication "  in  an  earlier  day.  Malesherbes  follows 
suit,  and  gladly  consecrates  part  of  his  leisure  to 
her.  She  is  positive,  and  we  need  not  disbelieve 
her,  that  such  flattering  attentions  do  not  turn  her 
head.  "  I  do  not  stand  by  Monsieur  Turgot  from 
motives  of  gratitude.  I  should  not  forget  his  great 
worth  did  he  ignore  my  existence.  ...  I  could  tell 
you  much  of  Monsieur  de  Malesherbes,"  she  writes 
elsewhere,  "  but  that  might  sound  as  it  would  not 
be  meant.  After  all,  it  is  not  easy  to  perish  of 
vanity  when  one  is  dying  of  sadness." 

Julie's  faith  is  always  of  gossamer,  and  her  illu- 
sions do  not  endure.  The  ministry  is  no  sooner 
confronted  with  its  first  difficulties  than  she  returns 


HER    POLITICAL   CREED  219 

to  her  earlier  doubts  and  fears,  and  forthwith 
resumes  her  mantle  of  Cassandra.  "Our  friend," 
she  writes,  during  the  troubled  days  of  "  The 
War  of  the  Flours,"  "remained  calm  during  the 
storm,  and  lost  neither  his  courage  nor  good  sense. 
He  worked  day  and  night.  I,  owning  neither  his 
courage  nor  his  virtues,  confess  myself  full  of  grief 
and  fears.  My  fears  wear  the  guise  of  beliefs,  and 
I  cannot  contemplate  the  future  without  terror.  .  .  . 
Can  anything  humble  one  more  than  to  see  ill  for 
sole  issue  of  the  efforts  of  a  king  who  desires  the 
good,  and  a  minister  to  whom  it  is  a  passion  ? 
Caraccioli  talks  sense :  We  are,  for  the  most  part, 
plain  scum." 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse's  general  political 
creed  can  be  deduced  from  all  this  with  fair  accu- 
racy. She  is  by  conviction  an  idealist,  a  sceptic 
where  facts  are  concerned.  If  curiosity  would  lead 
us  to  picture  her  attitude,  had  she  survived  until 
the  Revolution,  we  may  see  her  as  a  second 
Madame  Roland  at  its  beginning — wildly  excited, 
in  transports  of  feverish  hope  ;  presently,  one  of  the 
first  to  be  disillusioned.  Her  disgust  and  revulsion 
would  have  been  the  more  acute  by  the  measure  of 
her  first  excitement,  natural  results  both  of  a  mind 
always  unevenly  poised — a  mind,  in  her  own  phrase, 
"like  a  thermometer  gone  wrong,"  leaping  up  from 
the  poles  "to  the  burning  zone  of  the  Equator," 
only  again  to  plunge  back  to  the  pole,  at  no  time 
able  to  mark  "  the  mean." 

Political  speculations  command  Julie's  lively 
interest,  but  they  never  move  her  heart.  She 


220  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

can  neither  really  belong  nor  unreservedly  yield 
herself  to  anything  which  does  not  appeal  directly 
to  her  sensibilities,  which  does  not  stir  her  feelings 
or  thrill  her  inmost  being.  This  is  the  especial 
appeal  of  music.  She  always  loved  it  "  in  the 
midst  of  my  youthful  dissipations,"  and  the  sweet 
hours  of  her  happiest  period  ;  but  she  confessed  that 
never  could  it  so  charm,  so  appear  in  its  true  value, 
as  in  the  dark  days  when  she  has  drained  the  bitter 
cup  to  its  lees.  "  Incurable  pain  seeks  only  that 
which  can  soothe,  and  of  such  healers  all  Nature  has 
shown  me  but  three."  First  of  these,  she  names  the 
presence  of  the  man  whom  she  loves  ;  next  opium, 
"  refuge  of  despair  "  ;  finally,  "  the  charmer  of  my 
woes  is  music.  Music  bestows  upon  my  blood,  and 
all  which  moves  me,  such  sweetness,  and  a  sensi- 
bility so  delicious,  that  I  might  almost  say  that 
regrets  and  every  ill  are  turned  to  delight  by  its 
magic."  Her  delight  in  melody  teaches  her  the 
words  with  which  to  describe  it,  as  when  she  writes 
thus  of  Orpheus:  "I  wept,  but  tears  had  no 
bitterness ;  my  pains  were  delight.  .  .  .  Music, 
charming  and  divine  art,  was  surely  the  invention 
of  a  man  called  to  console  the  unfortunate !  "  Or, 
again  of  the  same  opera :  "  My  feelings  were  so 
acute,  so  moved ;  they  so  rent  and  so  absorbed 
me,  that  words  are  incapable  of  expressing  my 
sensations.  I  felt  all  the  troubles  and  the  joys  of 
passion,  until  my  one  need  was  to  withdraw  myself; 
and  those  who  did  not  share  my  feeling  may  well 
have  found  me  stupid.  This  music  was  so  allied 
to  my  soul  and  disposition  that  I  shut  myself  up  at 


HER    LOVE    OF    MUSIC  221 

home  in  order  to  continue  my  enjoyment  of  the 
sensations  which  it  evoked.  .  .  .  These  voices 
joined  charm  to  pain  ;  their  notes,  as  it  were  alive 
and  moving,  haunted  me." 

Julie's  tastes  are  easily  to  be  read  in  these 
quotations,  which  leave  little  doubt  as  to  her 
preference  between  the  rival  schools  then  suing 
for  public  favour.  Yet  she  neither  decries  nor 
proscribes  the  music  that  pleases  but  does  not 
move,  and  speaks  rather  to  the  brain  than  the 
soul.  "  Exaggerate  I  may,  I  never  ignore,"  she 
writes  in  her  Apologie?  and  this  is  a  true 
verdict.  In  music,  as  in  all  else,  she  can  appre- 
ciate the  most  diverse  and  apparently  incompatible 
schools,  and  it  is  in  this  spirit  that  she  writes  after 
hearing  a  composition  by  Gretry.  "  I  admired  his 
talent,  for  never  was  music  more  spirited,  delicate, 
or  full  of  the  most  refined  taste.  It  is  as  the  talk  of 
a  witty,  daring,  and  elegant  conversationalist,  who 
will  always  attract  and  never  weary."  Later, 
praising  the  author  of  La  Fausse  Magie,  she 
takes  occasion  to  define  the  limits  of  her  admira- 
tion :  "Friend  Gretry  must  confine  himself  to 
the  sweet,  agreeable,  sensible,  and  spiritual — surely 
enough  !  A  little  man  whose  proportions  are  good 
will  find  it  both  dangerous  and  ridiculous  to  climb 
upon  stilts."  His  pleasant  talent  must  not  for  a 
moment  be  compared  with  the  marvellous  genius 
of  Gliick,  nor  these  pleasant  melodies  with  those 
"sublime"  numbers  which  overcome  her,  carry 
her  away,  make  her  "as  it  were  crazed."  .  .  . 

1  Apologie  d>Une  Pauvre  Personne^  &*c. 


222  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

"  How  compare  what  merely  pleases  with  that 
which  fills  the  soul,  wit  with  passion,  or  a  lively 
and  animated  pleasure  with  the  sweet  melancholy 
by  which  sorrow  almost  becomes  joy  ?  " 

Literature  stands  to  be  judged  in  a  like  spirit 
and  fashion.  She  has  neither  bias  nor  prejudice, 
and  does  not  entrench  herself  behind  the  walls  of 
any  clique,  but  her  preferences  are  not  the  less 
definite.  Her  "Apologia"  embodies  a  brief  review 
of  her  favourite  authors  and  works,  and  this  draws 
very  precise  distinctions  between  the  values  which 
she  places  upon  each.  The  Maxims  of  La  Roche- 
foucauld are  approved  for  their  "severity,"  and 
Montaigne's  Essays  for  their  charming  "unconven- 
tionality."  La  Fontaine's  Fables  are  naive  and 
simple.  But  she  reads  Racine's  pathetic  tragedies 
with  a  species  of  "passion,  "and  stands  almost  alone 
in  her  age  in  her  enthusiastic  "  transports  "  over 
certain  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  Voltaire's  wit  she 
judges  amusing,  while  the  multiplicity  of  his  gifts 
astonishes.  The  idylls  of  "sweetly  peaceful"  Gessner 
soothe  ;  there  is  a  delicate  flavour  in  Marivaux1 
"  fine  subtleties  "  and  "  appetising  affectations  "  ;  but 
she  is  almost  terrified  before  the  "  inflammatory 
eloquence"  of  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  and  "Clarissa 
Harlowe  "  brings  her  "  to  her  knees."  Among  the 
other  English  writers  whose  work  her  knowledge  of 
that  language  enables  her  to  study,  Sterne  gains 
special  approval  for  his  discreet  sensibility  and 
restrained  emotion.  Morellet  considers  her  pre- 
eminently responsible  for  the  popularity  of  the 
"Sentimental  Journey"  in  France.  She  certainly 


HER  INTELLECTUAL  CHARACTER    223 

amused  herself,  on  one  occasion,  by  forging  two 
additional  chapters  to  this  work  and  reading  them 
to  Madame  Geoffrin  and  her  circle  "as  unpub- 
lished." Their  plagiarism  was  so  skilful  and  the 
composition  so  clever  that  all  hearers  were  com- 
pletely deceived,  adjudged  them  better  than  the 
rest,  and  "far  better  translations." 

The  mental  outlook  of  Julie  de  Lespinasse 
was  little  less  complex  than  was  her  conduct.  I 
have  dealt  at  length  with  her  opinions  and  her 
preferences,  but  some  such  study  in  detail  seemed 
necessary  to  a  proper  understanding  of  her  intel- 
lectual point  of  view — in  modern  phrase,  "her  com- 
plicated mentality."  She  is  eclectic  in  the  sense  of 
her  own  expression — "a  voracity  for  affection," 
which  means  that  she  is  predisposed  to  welcome 
anything  that  induces  a  new  sensation.  But  she 
really  cares  for  nothing  which  does  not  stir  her 
deeper  feelings ;  which,  be  it  for  a  moment  only, 
lifts  her  "out  of  herself,"  and  sets  the  blood  to 
coursing  more  hotly,  more  rapidly  through  her 
veins.  It  may  therefore  be  said  that  there  is  but 
one  real  passion  behind  all  her  varied  tastes,  and 
that,  multifarious  as  are  the  expressions  of  her 
moral  "portrait,"  its  physiognomy  still  presents 
an  harmonious  unity. 

In  the  setting  which  has  now  been  traced, 
and  among  the  friends  whom  we  have  seen  as 
her  companions,  the  heroine  of  this  biography 
passed  many  quiet  years,  each  day  of  them  re- 
sembling the  last,  and  all  filled  with  the  most 
lofty  distractions.  We  can  follow  the  disposition 


224  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

of  those  days  with  the  greatest  minuteness.  Julie 
seldom  stirred  abroad  before  two  o'clock,  but 
spent  her  morning  hours  in  reading  and  writ- 
ing, unless,  as  often  happened,  she  received  the 
visits  of  special  friends  anxious  to  enjoy  her  un- 
interrupted company.  At  two  she  dined,  a  brief 
and  simple  meal  habitually  shared  with  d'Alembert, 
except  on  Mondays  and  Wednesdays,  when  both 
were  among  the  regular  company  round  Madame 
Geoffrin's  table.  The  afternoon  was  devoted  to 
drives  or  visits  ;  sometimes  to  a  walk  through  a 
museum,  or  the  exhibitions  which  were  becoming 
fashionable  about  this  time.  Six  always  sees  her 
at  home,  and  her  salon  never  empties  before  nine 
at  the  earliest.  Here,  the  conversation  is  frequently 
interrupted  by  readings,  as  when  La  Harpe  strains 
his  throat  to  declaim  a  new  tragedy,  or  Marmontel 
lets  fall  one  of  his  Contes  Moraux,  of  laboured 
simplicity  and  chilly  impropriety.  More  serious 
works  are  also  read  here — historical  fragments  or 
portions  of  a  scientific  memoir.  Madame  du 
Deffand  caustically  paints  Caraccioli's  astonish- 
ment at  one  such  scene.  "  He  was  drunk  with 
all  the  lovely  things  that  he  had  heard  read. 
Condorcet  had  lauded  one  Fontaine ;  Monsieur 
de  Chabanon  deigned  to  translate  Theocritus,  and 
I  can't  tell  you  who  had  not  contributed  both 
tales  and  fables.  And  all  these  were  more 
splendid  than  anything  of  the  kind  ever  before 
heard  of." 

Except  for  a  few   brief  summer   visits  to  the 
country,  she  pursued  this  round  from  year's  end  to 


HER   CONSERVATISM  225 

year's  end,  and  it  soon  became  matter  for  a  quite 
serious  effort  if  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  was 
to  break  with  her  monotonous  habits  for  even  a 
week.  At  first,  she  possibly  felt  some  yearning 
for  an  earlier  and  more  simple  way  of  life.  "All 
the  world  is  in  the  country,"  she  cries  one  day, 
"and  soon  I  mean  to  give  myself  some  air  with 
all  that  world."  But  such  yearnings,  if  yearnings 
they  were,  soon  passed,  and  she  yielded  to  a  species 
of  carelessness  and  horror  of  physical  effort  which 
made  the  idea  of  any  change  or  journey  intolerable. 
To  have  to  spend  twenty-four  hours  away  from 
home  calls  for  loud  complaints,  and  she  is  feverishly 
anxious  to  be  back  in  Rue  Saint  Dominique. 
"  Here  am  I  in  the  country  with  my  secretary 
(d'Alembert),  who  salutes  you  ;  and,  really,  I  might 
have  been  the  world  round,  so  disagreeable  do  I 
find  the  change.  We  arrived  in  execrable  weather, 
in  a  carriage  that  would  not  shut  properly,  in  wind 
and  in  rain."  All  this  pother  is  the  result  of  a 
two  days'  visit  to  Monsieur  d'Hericourt,  at  the 
Chateau  du  Boulai,  near  Fontainebleau.  "  I'd  as 
lief  die,"  she  writes  of  another  similar  occasion, 
"  but  they  say  that  we  owe  certain  things  to  our 
social  duty.  I  find  duties  of  this  kind  very  stupid 
at  times."  The  high-roads  she  will  not  face, 
and,  notwithstanding  a  hundred  invitations,  she 
never  once,  after  coming  to  Paris,  renewed  ac- 
quaintance with  the  province  in  which  she  had 
once  passed  so  many  years,  or  the  places  where 
her  nearest  relatives  still  dwelt.  Yet  she  was  by 
no  means  devoid  of  family  feeling,  and  a  judgment 

p 


226  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

based  on  such  appearances  would  do  her  a  distinct 
wrong.  Neither  her  false  position  before  the  world, 
nor  the  machinations  with  which  she  rightly  or 
wrongly  reproaches  certain  persons,  nor  all  her 
new  ties,  ever  effaced  her  earlier  affection  for 
the  comrades  of  her  youth — for  some  of  them, 
at  all  events,  and  for  Abel  de  Vichy  in  particular. 
She  corresponded  regularly  with  this  young  brother 
until  her  last  days,  and  these  touching  letters  ex- 
hibit her  character  in  a  light  hitherto  unknown  to 
the  world's  eye. 

The  permanence  of  Julie's  affection  for  Abel  is 
the  more  remarkable  since  their  ways  lay  so  far 
apart  Abel's  early  entry  into  the  army,  and  his 
service  as  bearer  of  the  colours  in  the  Gendarmes 
du  Berri,  seldom  {allowed  him  to  see  his  sister  ; 
and  when  he  had  married  Mademoiselle  de  Saint 
Georges  in  1766,  a  young  provincial,  "pretty,  tall, 
amiable,  with  a  fine  figure,  extremely  well  brought- 
up,"  and  of  good  family  but  little  or  no  fortune,  he 
was  less  than  ever  in  a  position  to  pay  frequent 
visits  to  the  metropolis.  Julie,  indeed,  did  not  see 
her  sister-in-law  until  two  years  after  the  marriage. 
We  find  her  asking  the  young  husband  whether  he 
has  "  the  good  fortune  and  good  taste  to  be  in  love 
with  your  wife  ?  Is  she  lively,  gay  ?  What  is  her 
character?  In  a  word,  dear  friend,  draw  me  her 
portrait,  since  I  cannot  see  her ;  teach  me  to  know 
her,  and  you  will  give  me  real  pleasure.  I  do  not 
mean  her  physical  but  her  moral  portrait,  for  this 
is  what  really  matters  to  your  happiness,  and  no 
one  is  more  interested  in  that  than  myself — after 


ABEL   DE    VICHY  227 

your  wife,  of  course ! "  This  tone  of  simple  affec- 
tion pervades  the  entire  correspondence.  Julie 
does  not  here  choose  words  or  parade  sentiments. 
Every  line  in  her  letters  breathes  the  liveliest  in- 
terest in  all  Abel's  affairs,  and  she  takes  care  to 
give  him  all  the  news  about  herself,  even  to  such 
details  as  the  welfare  of  her  little  dog  Sophilette, 
and  the  parrot — "a  terrible  talker  of  nonsense." 

But  the  chief  interest  of  these  letters  is  the  way 
in  which  they  shed  a  hitherto  undreamed-of  light 
upon  the  character  of  her  whom  men  variously 
called  the  Sappho  of  her  age,  and  the  Muse  of 
the  Encyclopedia.  Every  page  is  filled  with  the 
most  judicious  and  virtuous  counsel — circumspect, 
prudent,  and  wise  sisterly  advice  to  a  young  brother, 
doubtless  "a  good  boy,"  yet  inclined  to  the  hot 
and  wayward  conduct  natural  to  his  age.  To  read 
these  letters,  a  trifle  "  preachy,"  but  true  models 
of  worldly  wisdom,  is  to  find  a  most  unexpected 
Julie — mistress  of  her  home,  careful  housekeeper, 
even  a  trifle  niggardly  ;  a  woman  as  prudent,  prac- 
tical, and  sage  where  her  brother  is  concerned  as 
she  is  passionate,  headstrong,  rash,  and  impulsive 
in  all  that  touches  herself.  Thus,  when  Abel, 
lately  married,  proposes  to  leave  the  army  in  order 
better  to  consecrate  himself  to  his  adored  wife  and 
the  care  of  his  estate,  Julie  is  a  very  copy-book 
counsellor.  "  You  cannot  examine  yourself  too 
carefully  lest  you  one  day  regret  this  renunciation 
of  what  the  world  holds  a  most  promising  avenue 
of  advancement.  But  this  is  by  no  means  all.  You 
are  in  duty  bound  to  foresee  a  day  when  passion 


228  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

shall  have  cooled.  Will  idleness  please  you  then  ? — 
for  no  one  can  suppose  that  the  care  of  his  acres 
is  sufficient  occupation  for  an  active  mind.  Just 
now  it  may  seem  sufficient,  for  your  mind  is  ab- 
sorbed in  an  active  passion.  I  do  not  doubt  that 
ample  confidence  and  true  friendship  will  follow. 
But,  yet  again,  a  time  will  come,  and  with  it  a  void, 
and  your  military  duties  would  fill  that  void.  ...  I 
wished  to  say  all  that  my  tender  affection  for  you 
has  taught  me  to  see.  I  desire  your  happiness 
above  all  else,  and  therefore  I  cannot  wish  you 
lightly  to  take  a  step  which  will  and  must  influence 
every  day  of  life  that  remains  to  you." 

Advice  thus  reiterated  won  the  usual  reward 
of  its  kind.  Abel  can  hear  no  voice  but  that  of 
his  own  desire,  and  his  decision  to  send  in  his 
papers  gives  Julie  one  more  opportunity.  He  is 
determined,  and  therefore  she  neither  regrets  nor 
reproaches,  but  she  does  give  practical  advice  as  to 
how  he  may  best  conduct  the  affair  so  as  to  avoid 
unpleasant  criticism.  "He  had  better,"  she  writes 
to  his  mother,  "send  in  his  resignation  by  means 
of  the  briefest  possible  letter  to  the  Due  de  Choiseul. 
He  should  not  spare  the  expression  of  his  regrets, 
and  he  must  be  perfectly  open.  The  same  post 
should  carry  a  simple  intimation  of  the  act  to 
Madame  du  Deffand,  and  another  to  the  Abbe  de 
Champrond.  Thus,  he  should  escape  many  com- 
ments which  cannot  but  gall  his  feelings."  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  also  impressed  upon  Abel 
the  necessity  of  nursing  the  susceptibilities  of  the 
redoubtable  Marquise — surely  a  most  disinterested 


SISTERLY   ADVICE  229 

action  on  her  part.  "Why  have  you  not  told  the 
Marquise  that  you  contemplated  this  step?  It 
would  have  been  dealing  more  properly  by  her, 
— and  pardon  me  if  I  remark  that  a  man  should 
always  be  careful  in  little  matters  of  this  sort." 
Duty  satisfied,  she  turns  to  the  most  charming  ex- 
hortations to  enjoy  to  the  full,  and  without  a  regret, 
the  peaceable,  obscure,  and  responsible  path  which 
he  has  chosen.  "You  have  counted  the  cost,  and 
there  is  no  more  to  say.  But  you  must  expect  that 
this  country  will  not  spare  its  strictures,  for  its 
standard  of  judgment  is  almost  wholly  wedded  to 
vanity,  its  idea  of  pleasure  is  to  stand  well  with  the 
world,  and  its  watchword,  '  Appearances  are  the 
man.'  And  this  world  of  ours  is  right,  for  it  lives  a 
thousand  miles  beyond  knowledge  of  what  domestic 
happiness  means,  or  the  idea  that  a  fortune  may 
yield  double  pleasure  when  spent  for  the  good  of 
our  estates,  and  in  ensuring  the  welfare  of  those 
who  depend  upon  us.  We  have  refined  upon  re- 
finement until  there  is  no  pleasure  in  heaven  or 
earth  of  which  we  are  ignorant  except  simplicity 
and  a  natural  existence.  Do  not,  then,  be  vexed  ; 
still  less,  trouble  yourself.  But  these  men  of  sense 
must  needs  rejoice  after  their  own  kind.  The  kind 
preferred  by  you  is  only  to  be  praised,  for  your 
purposed  life  was  made  to  content  and  satisfy  a 
sensible  and  virtuous  mind." 

From  the  day  of  Abel's  choice,  Julie  concerns 
herself  with  his  family  life.  The  health  and  educa- 
tion of  his  children  are  her  constant  interest,  but 
she  would  fain  see  them  increase  in  number.  "  I 


23o  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

wish  you  would  not  be  content  with  two  babes. 
You  should  have  six,  for  you  could  make  them  so 
happy!"  These  "babes"  are  hardly  out  of  bibs  and 
tuckers  before  she  must  find  them  a  suitable  teacher, 
and  faithful  d'Alembert  is  drawn  into  the  quest. 
In  short,  Julie's  grand  preoccupation  is  her  brother's 
life  in  its  most  minute  details,  and  her  joy  when  the 
young  couple  arrive  in  Paris,  in  the  autumn  of  1770, 
is  easily  understood.  Abel  de  Vichy's  journal,  and 
Julie's  letters  of  the  time,  show  that  there  was  hardly 
a  day  of  this  visit  on  which  brother  and  sister  did 
not  meet  in  the  tenderest  and  closest  intercourse. 
Now,  and  only  now,  she  breaks  with  old  habit, 
for  these  dear  country-cousins  must  be  shown  the 
town,  and  no  matter  what  the  discomfort  to  her  own 
poor  health,  Julie  guides  them  through  a  whirl  of 
expeditions,  visits,  suppers,  and  constant  theatre- 
parties. 

The  novelty  of  this,  however,  soon  wore  down, 
and  a  few  weeks  after  their  arrival  saw  Julie  endea- 
vouring to  temper  all  this  dissipation  with  a  little 
seriousness.  Her  success  was  far  from  complete, 
but  the  attempt  must  serve  for  key  to  the  understand- 
ing of  the  following  lines,  in  which  she  lightly  accuses 
Abel  of  doing  his  best  to  disgust  his  wife  with  Paris 
and  its  ways.  "  I  should  be  glad  to  know  her  safe 
at  Montceaux,  recuperating  after  all  her  fatigues — 
I  cannot  call  them  pleasures,  for  you  have  piled  them 
up  until  she  must  loathe  the  name !  I  am  terribly 
afraid  that  she  will  hate  Paris  after  the  way  you 
have  hustled  her  about.  That  would  be  a  pity.  If 
I  did  not  know  your  open  ways,  I  should  suspect 


HER   SLENDER    INCOME          231 

you  of  acting  like  those  mothers  who  wish  to  drive 
their  daughters  into  a  nunnery,  and  yet  to  have 
nothing  with  which  to  reproach  themselves.  So 
they  take  the  girls  about,  allow  them  all  sorts  of 
dissipations,  jewelry,  and  the  play,  until  the  poor 
things  are  utterly  disgusted,  and  fly  a  world  which, 
they  are  assured,  is  no  sort  of  place  for  them.  .  .  . 
I  trust  that  Madame  de  Vichy  will,  therefore,  refuse 
to  judge  Paris  by  what  she  has  seen  of  it,  for  I 
swear  that  if  life  here  were  what  she  has  found  it, 
I  should  verily  hold  Carmelite  vows  a  far  less 
rigorous  tribulation." 

There  is  no  need  to  multiply  quotations  of  this 
kind.  Those  that  have  been  set  out  show  Julie 
clearly  enough  in  her  novel  part  of  guide  and  in- 
structress— one  might  almost  say,  of  the  mother  of 
a  family.  Counsel  and  remonstrance  do  not,  how- 
ever, fill  all  her  letters  to  Abel.  She  does  not  make 
him  the  partaker  in  her  troubles  of  the  heart,  as 
may  be  well  supposed,  but  she  discusses  other  inti- 
mate details  freely,  her  health,  the  servants,  and  her 
limited  means.  She  usually  preserves  a  haughty 
stoicism  on  this  last  cause  of  anxiety,  but  when  she 
does  speak  of  it  to  her  brother  and  a  few  other  rela- 
tives, she  confesses  to  grave  fears  for  the  future  and 
considerable  present  embarrassment.  A  letter  to 
Abel  de  Vichy,  on  the  day  when  he  settled  at 
Montceaux,  contains  this  plaintive  passage  :  "  I  am 
sure  that  you  are  never  so  happy  as  when  at  Mont- 
ceaux, for  there  you  first  learned  the  joys  of  owner- 
ship, and  I  hear  that  they  are  very  real  joys,  although 
it  seems  that  I  shall  die  without  tasting  them.  Big 


232  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

estates  I  should  not  care  for,  but  I  confess  that  I 
begin  to  weary  of  my  poverty,  which  will  become  a 
real  misfortune  when  I  am  a  little  older.  But  suffi- 
cient unto  the  day  is  the  evil,  etc. ! "  She  returns  to 
the  theme  a  few  years  later,  the  occasion  being  certain 
new  taxes  which  bear  heavily  upon  her  slender  purse : 
"  You  need  only  take  away  my  friends  to  see  me  the 
victim  of  all  earthly  ills, — poverty,  poor  health,  and 
trouble  of  the  mind.  Yet  I  think  that  few  would 
have  carried  this  burden  better  than  I  have  done,  for 
I  seldom  complain,  though  life  is  indeed  a  burden  at 
times.  But  the  passage  of  the  years  does  frighten 
me,  since  our  wants  increase  with  age,  while  Abbe 
Terray  has  already  carried  off  400  livres  of  my 
income.  This  is  a  mean  wail,  but  to  have  one's 
necessaries  curtailed  like  this  is  to  have  occasion 
to  feel." 

The  last  letter  of  the  series  preserved  for  our 
eyes  touches  a  note  yet  more  lamentable.  Here, 
and  only  here  in  all  this  long  correspondence,  Julie's 
spirit  is  touched  with  gall,  or  her  feelings  are  strained. 
"  I  asked  you  certain  questions  which  you  have 
ignored,"  she  complains  to  her  brother.  "If  this 
was  an  oversight,  it  is  one  easily  understood  ;  if  it 
has  come  about  by  design,  I  must  say  that  your 
prudence  has  been  carried  too  far.  I  certainly  do 
not  wish  to  force  or  even  excite  a  confidence  ;  I  am 
not  curious,  and  I  can  restrain  my  zeal.  Therefore, 
believe  that  any  mark  of  your  friendship  will  always 
gratify  me,  but  that  I  shall  never  complain  when  you 
may  fail  me  in  this  regard.  Those  who  have  suffered 
like  me,  and  who  have  known  life  only  to  be  dis- 


HER   CHANGED   TEMPER          233 

gusted  and  disillusioned,  are  people  with  whom  in- 
tercourse is  easy.  They  expect  little,  and  they  resent 
nothing."  So  novel  a  strain  for  her  pen,  such  com- 
plaint for  a  light  cause,  and  such  bitter  discourage- 
ment, surely  point  to  a  change  in  Julie's  temper. 
She  has,  indeed,  arrived  at  a  period  when  all  that 
has  hitherto  formed  her  especial  pleasures  or  pursuits 
— the  fame  of  her  salon,  the  friendship  of  brilliant 
men,  and  the  high  distractions  of  art  and  literature, 
even  the  very  pains  of  friendship — are  to  seem  vain 
things  and  savourless.  The  story  of  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse  becomes,  henceforth,  the  story  of  her 
passion,  its  strifes  and  struggles.  All  her  faculties, 
a  strain  to  one  goal,  are  absorbed  and  concentrated 
on  that  which  she  may  not  enjoy  in  peace,  but  which 
denies  her  the  ability  to  enjoy  anything  else. 


CHAPTER    IX 

Love  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century — Revolutionary  influence  on 
feminine  ideas  of  the  works  of  J.  J.  Rousseau  and  Richardson — Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  is  the  most  illustrious  victim  of  the  romantic 
infection — The  Fuentes  family — Birth  and  education  of  the  Marquis  de 
Mora — His  marriage — His  father-in-law,  Count  d'Aranda — Death  of  the 
Marquise  de  Mora — The  Marquis  comes  to  Paris — Reputation  of  the 
family — His  personal  success  in  the  literary  and  social  salons — First 
meeting  with  Julie — His  instant  attraction  for  her — He  leaves  Paris 
directly  afterwards — His  triumphant  reception  in  Madrid  society — His 
essays  in  literature — Relations  with  the  Duchesse  de  Huescar — Sudden 
death  of  Mora's  son — He  returns  to  Paris. 

OUR  subject  has  thus  far  been  Julie  de  Lespinasse 
— the  exquisite  and  original  creature  who  exercised 
so  potent  a  charm  on  all  with  whom  she  came  in 
contact ;  Julie — the  incomparable  charmer  and  per- 
fect entertainer,  the  warm  and  devoted  friend,  the 
discreet  counsellor,  whose  every  word  was  wisdom 
and  the  voice  of  very  reason.  I  have  tried  to 
picture  her  thus — as  she  appeared  to  the  most  of 
those  who  knew  her,  and  many  quotations  from  the 
mouths  of  these  her  friends  prove  that  my  portrait 
has  not  been  imaginative.  Having  more  know- 
ledge than  the  majority  of  her  contemporaries,  or 
even  her  friends,  the  name  of  this  woman  brings 
before  us  a  personality  really  known  to  few  in  her 
day,  suspected  perhaps  by  others,  apparent,  as  they 
supposed,  to  two  or  three  at  most,  but  probably 
comprehended  by  not  one,  to  the  end.  For  this 
woman  was  of  the  world's  great  lovers — exalted, 
torn,  consumed ;  burnt  by  the  passion  which  ob- 


LOVE    AND   THE    AGE  235 

sessed  her  to  unreason  ;  tortured  by  jealousy,  an- 
guish, and  remorse  ;  whose  rent  and  bleeding  soul 
was  made  manifest,  when  thirty  years  were  gone 
over  her  grave,  by  the  publication  of  the  famous 
letters  which  contain,  as  has  been  said,  ''the  loudest 
heart-beats"  in  all  the  eighteenth  century.  By 
these  pages,  so  terribly  sincere,  Julie  de  Lespin- 
asse  lives,  as  she  will  continue  to  live,  in  the 
minds  of  men  ;  her  long  pain  is  made  her  posthu- 
mous glory.  She  is,  indeed,  the  final  type  of  a 
class  rare  at  all  times,  particularly  rare  in  the  epoch 
which  saw  her  live. 

And  here  let  it  be  agreed  that  the  common 
opinion — that  the  age  of  powder  and  patches  was 
incapable  of  more  than  the  scandalous  parody  and 
profanation  of  love — does  not  run  in  these  pages. 
Before  condemning  an  entire  century,  it  is  surely 
well  to  realise  that  it  contained  two  eras  of  which 
the  latter  redeems  the  former — in  part,  at  least. 
The  Regency,  and  the  years  which  followed  on  it, 
pursued  pleasure,  butterfly  caprice,  and  the  quick 
satisfaction  of  sense  or  vanity ;  the  second  half  of 
the  century  saw  a  moral  and  intellectual  revolution 
in  which  avowed  gallantry  and  cynical  libertinage 
gave  place  to  a  very  different  propaganda.  Chas- 
tity and  constancy  obtain  the  honour  lately  paid  to 
their  reverse;  "attachments"  replace  "fancies," 
and,  even  as  these  are  the  issue  of  free  choice, 
they  are  often,  as  it  were,  a  second  marriage,  and 
one  held  in  the  more  honour,  since  marriage  in  that 
day  was  seldom  other  than  a  compact,  made  with- 
out choice  or  inclination.  Morality  in  the  strict 


236  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

sense  is  not  bettered,  perhaps ;  but  few  will  care  to 
deny  that  the  dignity  of  life  is  a  gainer,  or  that  this 
very  irregularity  masks  a  rise  in  the  estimation  of 
virtue.  So,  at  least,  recalling  her  youth,  adjudges 
a  woman l  whose  notorious  honesty  permits  her  to 
be  indulgent.  "  Good  God  !  how  unjustly  the  age  is 
judged !  How  generous,  well  nurtured,  and  delicate 
was  that  distinguished  society!  How  solid  its  ties! 
What  faith  to  sworn  faith,  even  in  the  least  moral 
of  relations ! " 

The  tone  of  the  day  in  regard  to  these  almost 
public  connections  is  one  of  gentle  friendship,  emo- 
tional, confiding ;  of  a  sensibility  easily  moved  to 
tears  and  tinged  with  melancholy.  The  accent  of 
passion  seldom  speaks ;  there  is  no  ecstasy  nor  no 
despair.  This  is  no  ground  for  wonder.  Love  in 
delirium  is,  like  a  high  fever,  rare — a  matter,  we 
may  suppose,  that  does  call  for  regret.  But 
a  sentiment  is  not  the  less  real  because  it  is  not 
hysterical.  It  is  very  clear  that  a  transformation  did 
occur  during  the  forty  years  immediately  preceding 
the  Revolution,  and  this  undeniable  advance  was 
largely  due  to  the  pens  of  two  famous  writers, 
Richardson  and  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau.  The  real 
power  of  literature  needs  no  clearer  testimony  than 
this  of  the  influence  exercised  upon  women  of  the 
time  by  volumes  of  which  the  mere  titles  are  un- 
known to  so  many  of  their  sisters  of  to-day.  In 
street  and  boudoir  a  long  shiver  seemed  to  pierce 
woman's  torpid  egoism.  She  rose  up  as  at  the 
break  of  morning,  and  the  agents  of  this  change 

1  La  Vie  de  la  Princesse  de  Poix,  par  la  Vicomtesse  de  Noailles. 


JULIE    AND    LOVE  237 

were  La  Nouvelle  H^lo'ise,  Clarissa  Harlowe,  Sir 
Charles  Grandison.  Eyes  thus  opened  were  aware 
of  an  obscure  suffering  and  a  moral  void ;  that 
joy  was  dead,  and  existence  vain  without  an  ideal. 
Salvation  cried  for  those  joys  of  the  heart  and  the 
sentimental  life,  and  the  fount  of  tears  was  quickened 
in  the  deeps  of  long-dry  souls.  The  re-arisen  fires 
shone  brighter  for  the  darkness  past,  and  love  was 
seen  as  a  god  new-born,  beneficent,  twice  adorable, 
who  was  so  long  forgot. 

In  many  women  the  change  was  certainly  more 
apparent  than  real ;  their  conformity  was  a  fashion, 
a  pose,  an  elegance  of  some  kind,  rather  than  a  vital 
metamorphosis.  Yet  some  were  surely  reached  by 
this  new  grace,  which  moved  yet  others  to  the 
depths.  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  was  of  these 
last — their  chief,  in  fact.  Her  temperament  was 
naturally  ardent,  exaggerated,  and  headlong,  and  she 
was  no  sooner  aware  of  the  ocean  of  passion  than 
she  plunged  into  it,  and  could  never  again  master  her 
soul.  Love  for  love's  sake  was  her  creed  when  she 
found  it,  and  the  man  was  distinctly  second  to  the 
emotion  which  forthwith  became  the  focus  and  the 
end  of  existence.  "  Read  in  the  deeps  of  my  heart," 
she  cries  in  perfect  good  faith,  "  and  place  therein 
yet  more  and  better  trust  than  in  my  words.  Can 
words  ever  express  feeling,  that  which  moves  us 
and  whereby  we  draw  breath — this  greater  neces- 
sity, aye !  more  than  very  air,  for  of  life  I  have  no 
need,  while  love  I  must !  "  And,  from  amidst  such 
fierce  effusions,  rises  ever  as  a  refrain  the  remem- 
brance of  those  who  have  kindled  the  flame  that 


238  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

devours — Jean  Jacques,  who  "  holds  me  so  that  I  am 
afraid,"  and  Richardson,  whose  romance  she  never 
reads  but  the  story  of  Clarissa  Harlowe  seems  some- 
how to  become  her  own.  "  You  will  think  me  mad," 
she  writes  to  an  intimate,  "  but  read  one  of  Clarissa's 
letters,  a  page  of  Jean  Jacques,  and  confess  if  you 
have  not  heard  my  very  voice.  I  do  not  mean  that 
I  speak  with  their  tongue,  but  we  be  dwellers  in 
one  land.  My  soul  responds  to  every  beat  of 
Clarissa's  dolorous  heart." 

This  romantic  obsession  has  clear  dangers  to  an 
inflammable  mind.  Certain  disillusionment  can 
alone  reward  one  who  moulds  herself  on  such  a 
type  of  the  superhuman  ideal,  the  impossible  ;  who 
would  bring  within  the  domain  of  real  life  the  ex- 
aggerated sentiments  of  fiction.  Those  who  fly  high 
must  needs  risk  falls  that  can  only  end  in  broken 
wings  and  sore  bruises,  and  this  was  Julie's  last 
end  and  the  secret  of  her  pains.  Of  these  pains 
she  is,  beyond  cavil,  chief  author  and  artificer ;  and 
the  greatest  crime  of  him  whom  she  will  call 
"murderer"  and  "executioner,"  and  yet  love  to  the 
end,  is  that  he  was  merely  a  man  when  he  should 
be  a  hero  of  romance.  Yet  her  mistake  has  its 
explanation  and  excuse.  Before  the  grand  mistake, 
chance  sent  her  one  assuredly  made  in  such  rare 
image  as  might  well  encourage  the  vain  dream,  and 
give  form  to  the  visions  of  her  fevered  brain. 

The  Marquis  de  Mora,  without  being  at  all 
points  the  "perfect  lover"  or  "celestial  creature," 
visions  of  whom  were  to  haunt  Julie  to  the  grave, 
was  at  least  the  victim  of  circumstances  that  in- 


THE    MARQUIS    DE    MORA        239 

vested  him  with  all  appearances  of  such  a  pheno- 
menon. Absence,  sickness,  and  untimely  death 
perpetuated  his  desirability,  and  crowned  him  with 
the  aureole  of  her  dreams.  He  was  certainly  the 
cause  of  her  first  incursion  into  the  realms  of  great 
love. 

The  personality  of  the  Marquis  de  Mora  has 
hitherto  been  very  indefinite,  but  certain  new 
papers,1  communicated  to  me,  make  possible  a 
fairly  clear  reconstruction  of  the  man  as  he  was  ; 
and  since  he  undoubtedly  dominates  the  whole 
sentimental  side  of  Julie's  life,  it  seems  only  fitting 
that  this  portrait  should  be  given  in  full.  He  it  is 
on  whom  she  calls  in  secret,  though  now  she  burn 
for  another  ;  faithless  to  those  earlier  vows  so  freely 
lavished  upon  him,  he  is  the  god  behind  the  altar 
before  which  she  bows  in  secret  remorse.  This 
dual  sentiment  presents  a  curious  mental  problem, 
the  inwardness  of  which  may  reveal  itself  more 
clearly  if  we  inquire  into  the  strange  history  of  the 
mutual  allegiance  of  these  strange  characters. 

The  Aragonese  branch  of  the  Pignatelli  family 
— another  was  domiciled  at  Naples — is  one  of  the 
oldest  and  most  famous  in  Spain.  Its  most  notable 
figure  in  the  eighteenth  century,  Don  Joaquin 
Atanasio,  sixteenth  Count  of  Fuentes,  was  a  trusted 
servant  of  His  Most  Catholic  Majesty.  Tall  and 
wizened,  and  "  handsomely  ugly,"  this  grandee  had 
nothing  of  the  aloofness  and  chill  gravity  then 

1  Retratos  de  Antano  (Madrid,  1895.  Privately  printed  for  the 
Duchesse  de  Villa  Hermosa.)  Also,  El  Marquis  de  Mora  (ibid. 
1903),  both  by  P.  Coloma. 


24o  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

attributed  to  all  his  nation.  He  is,  indeed,  re- 
marked as  possessing  the  Italian  rather  than  the 
Spanish  temperament — a  gay  and  lively  person, 
gracious,  willing  to  please ;  a  servant  of  the  ladies, 
and  one  who  flitted  ever  here  and  there,  "never  seen 
to  take  a  seat  or  stand  in  one  place."  In  diplomatic 
affairs,  however,  he  was  a  serious  man,  somewhat 
stiff  as  became  his  grave  duties,  and  as  impene- 
trable a  keeper  of  political  secrets  as  he  was  socially 
expansive  in  a  salon.  Dona  Maria  Luiza  Gonzaga 
y  Caracciolo,  Duchesse  de  Solferino,  his  wife,  was 
credited  with  more  brains  than  education.  She 
was  affable  but  a  trifle  futile,  a  passionate  gambler, 
and  ensuer  of  high  social  pleasures — one,  in  short, 
born  to  grace  a  court,  were  not  her  poor  health  a 
continual  obstacle  often  compelling  her  to  lead  the 
quiet  life  for  a  whole  season's  round.  Her  first 
child,  Maria  Luisa  Gonzaga,  entered  the  monastery 
of  the  Sale"siennes  in  1762  ;  the  second,  Don  Jose"  y 
Gonzaga,  born  at  Saragossa  on  April  19,  1744, 
received  the  traditional  name  of  his  house's  eldest 
son,  as  Marquis  de  Mora. 

Commonly  called  Pepe  in  the  family,  this  son 
passed  his  earlier  years  in  the  family  palace  on  the 
Corso  of  Saragossa,  with  his  younger  brother  Luis 
Pignatelli  and  a  sister  Maria  Manuela.  This  sister 
married  the  Due  de  Villa  Hermosa,  and  both  she 
and  her  brother  will  presently  reappear  in  these 
pages.  In  1754,  Mora  being  then  in  his  tenth 
year,  Ferdinand  VI  appointed  his  father  ambas- 
sador to  the  Court  of  Turin,  and  here  the  lad  was 
entrusted  to  the  tutorship  of  Abbe  de  la  Garanne. 


MORA'S    MARRIAGE  241 

The  Abbe  was  a  Frenchman  and  taught  in  that 
language,  which  readily  explains  Mora's  future 
bilingual  facility.  To  the  same  source  must  be 
traced  his  early  profession  of  certain  ideas  more  in 
honour  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine  than  on  those  of 
the  Ebro  or  Mancanares. 

At  precisely  twelve  years  of  age  the  lad 
married,  and  was  gazetted  to  a  commission  in 
the  Spanish  army ;  and  though  either  event  was 
of  nominal  rather  than  immediate  significance,  his 
future  was  none  the  less  affected.  The  girl  with 
whom  his  destinies  were  thus  summarily  united 
bore  the  name  of  Maria  Ignacia  del  Pilar,  and 
was  a  daughter  of  Count  d'Aranda,  then  Spanish 
ambassador  at  Lisbon,  and  head  of  a  family 
between  which  and  his  own  a  great  lawsuit  had 
long  been  at  issue.  Thanks  to  her  brother's 
recent  death,  this  child  of  eleven  was  sole  heir  to 
a  splendid  fortune,  while  her  immediate  dowry  was 
the  Duchy  of  Almazan.  The  idea  of  terminating 
their  feud  by  this  marriage  was  no  sooner  mooted 
between  the  families  concerned  than  it  was  put 
into  effect,  and  on  the  morrow  of  December  4, 
1756,  Mora  awoke  to  find  himself  possessor  of 
a  wife  who  still  dandled  her  doll. 

The  three  years  following  this  fateful  day  Mora 
passed  under  the  care  of  his  stepmother  and  his 
tutor,  at  the  Hotel  d'Aranda  in  Saragossa — his 
father  was  still  at  Turin — but  the  close  of  the 
year  1759  brought  a  second  ceremony  of  marriage. 
The  Fuentes  family  returned  from  Turin  and  the 
Arandas  from  Portugal ;  there  were  pomps  and 

Q 


242  JULIE   DE    LESPINASSE 

rejoicings,  and  on  April  6,  1760,  "all  the  nobility 
of  the  kingdom  "  graced  the  religious  service  which 
sealed  its  earlier  counterpart.  All  united  to  praise 
"the  splendid  boy";  few  found  a  word  to  applaud 
the  girl  wife,  with  her  skin  "dark  enough  to 
frighten  any  man,  and  a  mouth  prematurely 
emptied  of  teeth."  Horace  Walpole's  letter  of 
the  following  June  attests  these  last  criticisms : 
"They  say  that  she  is  not  plain,  and  that  her 
dentition  is  as  good  as  may  be  expected  of  two 
teeth — and  black  uns  at  that."  Surely  neither  keen 
eye  nor  boding  spirit  was  required  to  prophesy  the 
end  of  such  an  alliance. 

Madame  de  Mora  counts  little  in  her  husband's 
story,  but  her  family  redressed  the  balance,  for 
Count  d'Aranda's  influence  potently  affected  the 
Marquis's  character,  and  indeed  turned  his  mind  in 
the  direction  which  he  afterwards  pursued  more  than 
willingly.  This  Count  d'Aranda,  singularly  unlike 
the  majority  of  his  conservative  countrymen,  dared 
to  turn  his  eyes  beyond  the  Pyrenees,  and  to  open 
his  ears  to  the  new  doctrines  there  current.  For 
years  almost  the  sole  representative  of  this  new 
evangel  at  the  Court  of  Castile,  his  subsequent  acces- 
sion to  power  presented  him  in  the  rare  guise  of  a 
theorist  who  practises  his  own  doctrines.  He  was, 
however,  a  man  of  more  will  than  wit,  and  his  dull 
and  frequently  obscure  tongue  was  a  sad  disappoint- 
ment to  Paris  when  he  carried  his  high  renown 
thither.  His  fair  neighbour  at  a  dinner  given  in  his 
honour  at  Versailles  complains  loudly  :  "  Not  only 
did  he  fail  to  make  a  single  witty  remark,  but  he  was 


COUNT    D'ARANDA  243 

as  dull  and  ordinary  as  can  be !  I  think,  however, 
that  he  is  a  trifle  deaf,  and  unaware  of  it."  Carac- 
cioli  compared  him  to  a  deep  well  with  a  narrow 
mouth.  His  sound  sense  and  lofty  character  were 
in  direct  contrast  to  his  superficial  failure.  The  Due 
de  Levis  found  him  "  dignified  without  arrogance, 
and  weighty  without  being  slow.  He  could  be  im- 
penetrable without  being  mysterious."  His  strength 
of  character  amounted  to  obstinacy,  and  Charles  1 1 1 
called  him  "  an  Aragonese  mule,"  but  he  kept  his 
counsel  as  may  few.  Thus,  so  secretly  were  his 
plans  laid  for  the  famous  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits, 
his  most  notable  ministerial  act,  that  every  one  of 
their  communities  was  closed  at  the  same  hour  on 
the  same  day,  yet  never  a  man  in  the  kingdom  had 
heard  word  of  what  was  to  be.  His  dry  answer 
to  the  question,  "  How  could  you  act  with  such 
secrecy  ? "  "  By  holding  my  tongue ! "  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  man. 

That  the  Encyclopaedia  welcomed  so  puissant  a 
recruit  with  open  arms  is  a  fact  which  needs  no 
chronicle.  Voltaire  led  the  dance  with  his  accus- 
tomed spirit.  "  You  are  aware,"  he  writes  to  Madame 
du  Deffand,  "  that  a  matter  of  thirty  cooks  have  been 
baking  certain  patties  during  these  last  few  years  in 
Europe.  A  taste  has  grown  up  for  them  even  in 
Spain,  where  Count  d' Aranda  and  his  friends  partake 
freely."  Galiani  records  how  the  master's  enthu- 
siasm was  handed  on:  "The  good  old  man  is  now 
pure  Spanish — all  for  Aranda.  Of  course,  all  France 
follows  suit,  and  the  concert  of  applause  is  unani- 
mous." The  Count  is  a  hero  who  shall  cleanse  "  the 


244  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

new  Augean  stables  "  ;  a  victorious  abaser  "  of  fana- 
tics and  superstition  "  ;  the  brave  liberator  who  has 
"  chased  the  Jesuits  out  of  Spain,  and  so  shall  chase 
plenty  more  such  vermin."  That  Mora,  whose 
essentially  French  education  had  increased  his 
natural  ardour  for  everything  new,  and  who  breathed 
in  all  this  at  the  family  hearth,  immediately  found 
himself  at  home  in  the  salon  of  Rue  Saint  Domi- 
nique, when  he  presently  visited  Paris,  need  not, 
therefore,  astonish  us. 

Count  de  Fuentes  had  no  sooner  married  his 
son  than  he  was  appointed  Spanish  ambassador  at 
London,  whither  the  young  couple  accompanied 
him.  The  Marquise  de  Mora's  child,  a  daughter, 
born  here  during  the  following  year,  died  within  a 
few  months — a  victim  of  the  climate,  it  was  said. 
Whether  for  this  reason,  or  that  he  was  not 
persona  grata  at  St.  James's,  the  Count  applied  for 
his  recall,  and  returned  to  Madrid  with  his  family  in 
January  1762.  Here  Mora  experienced  his  first 
passion,  falling  a  victim  to  the  charms  of  the  cele- 
brated actress  Mariquita  Ladvenant,  a  lady  whose 
talent,  beauty,  and  adventures  were  at  this  time 
diverting  the  Castilians  as  much  as  her  pious  and 
repentant  end  edified  them  at  a  later  date.  The 
young  man  made  so  little  attempt  to  conceal  this 
attachment  that  the  lady's  titular  protector,  the  Due 
de  Villa  Hermosa,  conceived  himself  outraged,  and 
the  consequent  quarrel  created  such  scandal  that  the 
families  of  Aranda  and  Fuentes  considered  it  neces- 
sary to  intervene.  They  therefore  secured  him  a 
colonelcy  and  packed  him  off  to  his  new  command 


DEATH    OF    MARQUISE    DE    MORA    245 

in  the  Galician  regiment  then  quartered  at  Sara- 
gossa.  His  father  was,  at  the  same  time,  appointed 
ambassador  at  Paris. 

Luis  Gonzaga,  Mora's  son,  was  born  on  August 
25,  1764,  and  the  bells  were  still  ringing  in  honour 
of  the  event  when,  almost  without  warning,  and 
making  little  more  noise  in  her  dying  than  she  had 
in  life,  the  Marquise  passed  quietly  away.  She  was 
little  mourned,  and  forgotten  as  quickly.  Countess 
d'Aranda  took  charge  of  the  child,  and  Mora,  obtain- 
ing leave,  proceeded  forthwith  to  join  his  father  in 
Paris.  Widower  and  father  at  the  age  of  twenty, 
neither  event  seemingly  made  any  real  impression 
on  his  character,  and  the  wits  of  Madrid  were  quick 
to  apply  to  him  the  popular  song — 

"  I  saw  her  at  Mass  on  Sunday, 
Sent  her  a  message  o'  Monday, 
Wedded  her  safe  on  the  Tuesday, 
Gave  her  a  drubbing,  Wednesday  ; 
She  lay  abed  on  Thursday ; 
Houselled  she  was  on  Friday ; 
Saturday  saw  her  where  dead  she  lay, 
And  buried  and  done  with  on  Sunday  : — 
Sure,  but  than  I  is  none  cleverer, 
In  one  week  boy,  married,  and  widower  !  " 

Mora  reached  the  Spanish  Embassy  in  Paris,  then 
the  old  Hotel  Soyecourt  in  Rue  de  l'Universit6,  at 
the  close  of  October,  and  was  quartered  with  the  two 
secretaries,  Fernando  Magallon  and  the  Due  de  Villa 
Hermosa — the  latter  his  sometime  rival  for  the  graces 
of  Mariquita  Ladvenant.  The  trio  were  quickly 
close  friends,  and  his  comrades  soon  introduced  the 
young  Marquis  to  their  numerous  Parisian  acquaint- 


246  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

ance.  Magallon's  name  is  now  known  thanks  only 
to  the  letters  of  his  friend  and  admirer,  Abb6  Galiani. 
He  was  a  man  of  some  parts  but  no  high  character, 
and  an  assiduous  frequenter  of  Encyclopaedist  circles. 
"  Don  Juan  Pablo,"  Due  de  Villa  Hermosa,  was  a 
more  serious  personage,  whose  wealth  and  birth 
enabled  him  to  figure  no  less  freely  in  Paris  than  in 
Madrid.  He  prided  himself  on  a  knowledge  of 
French  literature,  and  Voltaire  recommended  his 
translation  of  a  work  by  Balthasar  Gracian  to  the 
Academy,  whose  plaudits  he  duly  received. 

These  comrades  were  of  social  service  to  Mora, 
but  he  would  have  been  welcomed  by  Parisian 
society  in  any  case,  thanks  to  his  family's  position, 
for  since  the  conclusion  of  the  Family  Compact,1 
the  Spanish  ambassador  had  been  in  great  honour 
at  Court.  Louis  XV,  indeed,  invariably  placed  a 
suite  at  the  disposal  of  Count  de  Fuentes,  in 
whatever  palace  he  might  be ;  and  while  other 
diplomatists  must  await  the  Tuesday  audiences  for 
a  hearing,  he  need  only  appear  and  all  doors  swung 
wide  open.  A  familiar  friend  of  the  Royal  Family, 
the  Queen  and  her  daughters  were  wont  to  make 
daily  requisition  from  his  cook  of  certain  delectable 
Spanish  dishes,  while  his  failure  to  appear  one  night 
at  the  Royal  supper  caused  Louis  to  send  a  messen- 
ger to  inquire  into  the  cause  of  his  absence,  and  to 
"lecture  the  Count"  soundly  next  morning  for  the 
anxiety  that  he  had  caused.  "  It  would  be  difficult 
to  describe  Fuentes'  position  in  Paris,"  the  Due  de 

1  Concluded  in  1761,  to  guarantee  the  possessions  of  all  Bourbon 
powers. 


COUNTESS   DE    FUENTfcS         247 

Villa  Hermosa  writes  in  his  journal.  "  The  Queen 
asserts  that  his  departure  cannot  be  thought  of,  as 
she  intends  always  to  keep  him  near  her  person. 
The  King  cannot  do  without  him.  He  can  please 
himself  in  everything,  for,  do  what  he  will,  no  one 
ever  raises  an  objection."  His  charm  as  a  man 
won  him  the  favour  of  every  lady  at  Court,  and 
the  Encyclopaedia  found  the  ambassador  "  one  of 
the  most  enlightened  men  of  his  day  and  of  his 
country." 

Countess  de  Fuentes  cleverly  supported  her 
husband's  popularity,  for  although  she  was  already 
a  victim  of  the  disease  which  was  presently  to  kill 
her,  she  bore  its  pangs  with  the  extraordinary 
species  of  heroism  that  the  love  of  pleasure  teaches 
some  women.  But  love  "  bigwigs  "  as  she  might, 
she  was  able  enough  to  welcome  men  of  letters,  and 
her  credit  was  increased  by  the  general  belief  that 
she  was  the  first  who  recognised  the  intellect  and 
prophesied  the  brilliant  future  of  the  nameless, 
friendless,  and  moneyless  Rivarol,1  when  he  came 
to  seek  his  fortune  in  Paris.  Taking  him  under  her 
protection,  and  singing  his  praises  on  all  sides,  she 
soon  launched  on  the  salons  the  young  man  whose 
matchless  conversation  was  presently,  and  for  long 
years,  to  be  one  of  their  chiefest  attractions. 

Mora  could  scarcely  have  found  a  readier  wel- 
come than  as  the  son  of  this  couple,  and  he  was 
shortly  quite  a  fashion  in  that  paradoxical  and  con- 
tradictory world  where  laxest  morality  went  hand  in 
hand  with  the  loftiest  ideas,  the  seriousness  of  which 

J  Antoine,  Count  de  Rivarol,  1753-1801. 


248  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

was  only  to  be  equalled  by  the  frivolous  expression 
given  to  them,  while  their  factitious  brilliance  was 
the  admiration  of  a  world.  Versailles  first,  then 
Paris,  were  full  of  his  name,  although  it  is  only  fair 
to  record  that — witness  the  many  notes  still  possessed 
by  his  family — the  young  man's  earlier  triumphs 
were  distinctly  such  as  accorded  with  his  youth.  If 
the  world  had  conspired  to  heal  this  precocious 
widower's  wounds,  devoted  consolers  could  not  have 
arisen  in  greater  numbers.  They  were  not  re- 
pulsed, and  Mora's  conduct  for  a  time  was  such  as 
to  give  grounds  for  the  idea  that  he  would  be  con- 
tented with  such  perishable  laurels.  But  if  his 
blood  was  hot,  his  temper  was  also  high.  He 
dreamed  great  dreams,  and  satiety  came  hotfoot 
with  fierce  disgust  in  its  train.  Thenceforward  he 
might  be  young  in  years,  but  his  tastes  were  serious, 
and  literary  gatherings,  philosophical  debates,  and 
the  study  of  the  great  problems  already  agitating 
men's  minds,  claimed  him,  despite  the  world  and 
its  lures. 

A  note  thanking  Condorcet  for  the  loan  of  a 
manuscript  at  about  this  time  points  this  change  : 
"  You  speak  with  such  unhappy  truth  on  the  fate  of 
humanity,  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  overpraise 
either  the  work  or  the  man  that  so  labours  on 
behalf  of  the  oppressed.  But  the  eyes  of  the  foes 
of  truth  are  keen,  and  it  must  be  kept  from  their 
view.  You  may  count  on  my  absolute  discretion 
in  this.  If  the  world  might  share  my  hatred  of 
tyrants  and  persecutors,  such  secrecy  would  be 
enedless,  and  we  should  all  enjoy  the  inestimabel 


JULIE    MEETS    M.    DE    MORA      249 

benefits  of  freedom.  But  man  is  not  made  for 
freedom.  His  foolishness  and  his  follies  bind  him 
under  the  yoke  of  slavery."  Such  language  is 
strange  at  two-and-twenty,  and  hardly  that  of  a 
coxcomb  of  the  boudoirs  ;  and  we  need  not  wonder 
that  philosophical  circles  were  quick  to  watch  a 
young  stranger  who,  speaking  their  own  tongue 
perfectly,  argued  with  warm  yet  restrained  elo- 
quence ;  was  enthusiastic,  yet  did  not  forget  the 
sense  of  proportion ;  and  had  all  the  assurance 
of  conviction,  but  knew  how  to  temper  it  with 
modesty. 

Contemporaries  paint  Mora's  portrait  for  us  in 
some  such  colours  as  these,  and — a  matter  of  far 
higher  interest  to  us — it  was  in  this  sort  that  he 
appeared  to  Julie  on  the  day  of  their  first  chance 
meeting.  Moving  as  both  did  in  the  same  circles, 
the  encounter  was  bound  to  occur,  and  the  only 
astonishment  possible  in  the  matter  is  due  to  its 
late  occurrence,  for  it  is  not  until  December  1766, 
that  Julie  writes  to  d'Holbach  :  "  I  want  to  tell 
you  about  something  which  fills  my  thoughts  just 
now — a  new  acquaintance  who  possesses  my  brain, 
and  I  would  add,  my  heart,  if  you  did  not  deny  me 
that  organ."  Her  portrait  of  the  young  Spaniard 
demonstrates  the  deep  impression  that  he  made 
upon  her  from  the  first.  "His  face,  full  of  kindly 
sympathy,  imposes  confidence  and  friendship.  His 
character  is  gentle  and  attractive  without  being 
weak.  He  is  an  enthusiast,  yet  self-contained  ; 
well-balanced,  yet  full  of  qualities  and  intuition. 
And,  his  heart!  .  .  .  His  every  motion  expresses 


250  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

the  innate  virtue  to  which  his  discourse  bears  witness, 
and  of  which  his  acts  are  the  ensample."  And  so 
she  continues  in  this  strain,  vaunting  now  the  modest 
self-suppression,  now  the  naturalness,  loyalty,  and 
sincerity  of  him  who  seems  to  have  conquered  her 
at  first  sight.  "  One  can  always  see  to  the  bottom 
of  his  soul,  and  he  always  thinks  highly  enough  of 
those  he  loves,  or  loves  them  well  enough,  to  con- 
sider that  any  artificiality  would  be  as  much  beneath 
them  as  it  would  be  beneath  himself.  In  a  word,  I 
find  in  this  man  my  idea  of  perfection." 

This  is  surely  the  Julie  of  a  romantic  imagina- 
tion, nourished  on  dreams  and  visions,  whose  ideal 
— impossible  hero  ! — has  suddenly  become  concrete 
in  human  form,  and  whose  supreme  beauty  knows 
neither  fault  nor  blemish.  This  is  the  secret  master 
of  her  hopes  from  girlhood  upward.  He  has  forced 
her  head  in  a  moment,  and,  fight  as  she  will,  her 
heart  surrenders  fast.  "Ah!  If  you  could  know 
how  this  true  soul  calls  to  mine ! "  Yet,  thus  far, 
she  refuses  to  acknowledge  defeat.  Young  passion 
covers  itself  in  the  accustomed  veil.  "  I  would  not 
stop  here  if  he  were  not  a  man,  for  do  not  imagine 
that  my  liking  goes  near  to  love." 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  probably  believes 
that  this  protestation  is  justified,  for  if  an  experienced 
woman  shall  often  hardly  distinguish  between  warm 
friendship  and  the  first  flame  of  the  consuming  fire, 
how  much  darker  is  the  problem  for  a  passionate 
and  inexperienced  creature  whose  most  unequivocal 
sentiments  so  often  soar  on  wings  of  rhapsody? 
Julie  was  probably  not  long  deceived,  even  though 


MORA   LEAVES   PARIS  251 

the  time  in  which  she  could  sift  her  feelings  was 
short  indeed.  The  letter  quoted  above  is  dated 
December  29,  1766;  within  the  fortnight  Mora's 
face  was  turned  towards  home. 

Mora  left  Paris  thanks  to  a  vulgar  family  quarrel. 
His  relatives  combined  to  press  upon  him  the 
necessity  of  remarriage,  and  they  were  the  more 
insistent  because  a  distant  cousin,  Felicite  d'Egmont 
Pignatelli — a  beauty,  rich,  and  of  the  highest  birth — 
was  at  this  time  prepared  to  take  a  husband.  The 
young  man,  however,  declined  to  hear  reason,  finding 
his  new  liberty  too  precious  to  be  hampered  by  any 
bond,  however  golden.  He  met  every  argument 
with  this  plea,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  its 
reality,  or  to  suppose  that  it  covered  any  thought  of 
Julie.  But  his  obstinate  resistance  provoked  violent 
family  scenes,  and,  nowise  sorry  to  have  the  genuine 
excuse  that  his  leave  had  expired,  Mora  hastened 
back  to  Madrid,  where  an  "enthusiastic  reception" 
awaited  his  return. 

Castilian  society  was  curiously  unsettled  at  this 
time.  Spaniards  had  begun  to  travel,  and  to  inter- 
marry with  the  French  aristocracy.  Their  authors 
were  also  translating  the  most  notable  works  of  the 
new  philosophy,  and  the  combination  of  these  in- 
fluences had  awakened  them  to  the  new  ideas.  The 
mere  hall-mark  of  Parisian  origin  now  became  the 
signal  for  strange  enthusiasm,  and  certain  authors, 
Diderot,  Jean  Jacques  Rosseau,  and  Voltaire  were 
lauded  to  the  skies  by  men  who  had  never  looked 
between  the  covers  of  one  of  their  works.  A 
"pilgrimage"  to  Ferney  conferred  a  patent  of  the 


252  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

highest  intellect.  Men  whose  sole  pursuits  had 
been  hunting,  dancing,  the  gambling-tables,  or 
corridas,  suddenly  found  themselves  qualified  to 
revise  the  national  morals  or  laws,  declared  them- 
selves humanitarians  and  enemies  to  superstition, 
and  convinced  champions  of  the  "  diffusion  of  the 
new  gospel."  "Toleration"  was  all  the  fashion; 
"free-thought"  was  "the  last  thing."  Much  of  all 
this  was  plainly  superficial — the  shallowest  veneer, 
which  never  touched  the  radical  obstinacy  and  con- 
servatism of  the  nation.  But,  such  as  it  was,  the 
movement  was  afoot,  and  Mora,  an  eloquent  and 
clever  young  man,  newly  returned  from  a  "  furious 
success  in  Encyclopaedist  salons"  became  the  inevit- 
able focus  of  its  enthusiasms. 

Mora's  compatriots,  indeed,  convinced  that  here 
was  the  man  who  should  renew  the  faded  glories  of 
Castile,  fell  upon  him  as  "the  miracle  of  his  country," 
"the  greatest  of  all  Spain's  great."  Abb6  Galiani 
has  recorded  the  strength  of  this  idea  in  a  letter 
written  when,  but  a  few  years  later,  the  untimely  death 
of  the  young  Marquis  had  allowed  men  to  read  the 
measure  of  these  hopes  in  the  violence  of  the  regrets 
that  followed  their  fall.  "  Destiny  rules  all  our 
affairs,  and  Spain  was  worthy  of  but  one  Monsieur 
de  Mora.  Perhaps  this  fact  will  influence  the  whole 
order  of  the  fall  of  our  monarchies."  And,  again : 
"  There  are  lives  on  which  hang  the  destinies  of 
Empires.  Our  eyes  now  behold  a  false  appearance 
of  light,  but  Spain  will  not  be  as  France  for  Mora 
were  not  now  dead  had  the  eternal  order  so  planned 
it."  Such  enthusiasm  seems  strange  to-day,  or  we 


MORA    IN    MADRID  253 

lack  its  most  elementary  justification,  for  of  all 
Mora's  vast  correspondence,  or  his  rare  manu- 
scripts, a  few  personal  letters  have  alone  been 
preserved.  Yet,  that  he  excited  it  remains  clear, 
and  where  every  contemporary  proclaims  it — 
Italians  and  Frenchmen  no  less  than  Spaniards — 
posterity  must  needs  believe  that  the  object  of  so 
much  praise  was  certainly  a  man  of  some  work. 

Madrid  rejoiced  in  Mora,  but  the  Marquis  felt 
less  pleasure  in  Madrid.  He  was  vaguely  troubled, 
and  a  few  notes  of  the  period  confess  to  the 
"melancholy"  and  "invincible  sadness"  that  haunt 
him  since  his  return  from  Paris,  and  as  a  relief  to 
which  he  turned  to  the  pursuit  of  letters.  These 
works  do  not  seem  to  have  been  unduly  heavy  judg- 
ing from  their  titles — more  we  do  not  know  of  them 
— a  rhymed  elegy  on  the  late  decease  of  Mariquita 
Ladvenant,  and  certain  heroi-comic  verses  on  a 
friend's  love  affair.  This  latter,  Abbe  Casalbon, 
was  a  strange  figure.  An  unfrocked  Jesuit,  erudite 
humanist  and  elegant  writer,  he  was  always  star- 
ving, and  a  shameless  parasite  of  the  Madrileno 
grandees ;  paid  his  dinner  with  a  sonnet,  sold  his 
pen  to  the  highest  bidder ;  and  his  fiery  eloquence 
was  ever  ready  to  champion  the  strongest  or  richest 
side  in  any  quarrel,  private  or  political.  This  man 
the  Marquis  employed  to  translate,  or  rather  adapt, 
one  of  those  works  of  Richardson  which  were  at 
this  time  drawing  tears  from  every  pretty  eye  in 
Paris.  That  author  was  notoriously  a  favourite 
with  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  and  the  young 
man's  eagerness  to  submit  "  Sir  Charles  Grandison  " 


254  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

to  the  judgment  of  his  compatriots  was  no  doubt 
partly  due  to  his  recent  intercourse  with  that 
lady. 

Don  Pablo  Olavida  was  at  this  time  leader  of 
one  of  the  most  notable  salons  in  Madrid.  Some- 
time intendant  of  Seville,  this  man  was  rtow  a 
dabbler  in  letters  and  a  professed  Voltairian.  He 
was  also  extremely  rich  and  a  lavish  entertainer, 
and  in  this  quality  added  to  his  hotel  a  splendid 
theatre,  in  which  the  fine  flower  of  Madrid  nobility 
was  used  to  act  Voltaire  in  his  own  translated  ver- 
sions. Mora  was  his  frequent  guest,  and  the  most 
admired  as  he  was  the  most  frequent  contributor 
to  the  regular  weekly  discussions  on  literature  which 
took  place  in  this  theatre.  He  presently  consented 
to  become  a  member  of  the  company,  playing  the 
part  of  lover  to  its  star,  Dona  Mariana  de  Silva, 
widow  of  the  Due  de  Huescar,  a  lady  commonly 
surnamed  the  Acadtmicienne,  on  account  of  her 
facility  in  divers  literary  and  artistic  pursuits. 
"The  Duchesse  de  Huescar  writes  perfectly  with 
either  hand,  composes  excellent  verses,  and  trans- 
lates tragedies  and  many  other  works  from  the 
French."  This  gifted  lady  was  also  a  draughts- 
man and  a  painter,  and  certain  of  her  pictures  were 
exhibited  with  such  success  that  she  was  named 
honorary  president  of  the  Royale  Societi  de  Pein- 
ture.  "  And  to  all  these  acquired  gifts  she  joined 
the  innate  charms  of  beauty,  grace,  and  sweet 
conversation." 

This  intimacy  of  th  eboards  induced  the  inevitable 
sequel.  "  Having  a  thousand  times  exchanged  '  I 


DEATH    OF    MORA'S   SON          255 

love  you's,'  the  pair  began  to  believe  it  and  so  to 
feel  it."  Mora  was  apparently  no  serious  victim, 
and  he  certainly  was  not  permanently  hit.  The 
Duchesse,  on  the  contrary,  adored  him,  gave  notice 
to  her  court  of  admirers  for  good  and  all,  and  hid 
her  passion  so  little  that  all  Madrid  was  presently 
afire  with  the  story.  The  whisper  soon  reached 
Paris  and  excited  the  Fuentes  family,  for  the 
Duchesse's  sole  dowry  would  be  her  beauty  and  her 
talents.  And  she  was  Mora's  senior  by  only  four 
years.  To  break  the  charm,  the  ambassador  exer- 
cised all  his  credit  to  get  his  son's  regiment  ordered 
away  from  Madrid.  It  was  quartered  in  Catalonia, 
and  its  young  Colonel  followed  without  an  objec- 
tion, unresisting,  and  with  exemplary  obedience. 
A  love  affair  could  pass  the  time,  but  he  was 
scheming  for  no  less  than  renewed  leave  and  a 
return  to  Paris.  Gregorio  Munian,  Minister  for 
War,  was,  however,  a  martinet  who  turned  a  deaf 
ear  to  all  his  pleas.  Mora  was  in  despair,  when  an 
unhappy  event  beat  down  all  barriers  to  his  desire. 
His  little  son,  aged  barely  three,  died  suddenly  of 
the  small-pox  on  July  5,  1767. 

The  terrible  effect  of  this  blow  on  Mora's  sensi- 
tive nature  is  apparent  in  his  letters  to  the  Due  de 
Villa  Hermosa,  his  best  friend.  His  only  thought 
now  is  to  fly  to  his  parents,  and  in  their  affection 
forget  his  trouble  and  his  bruises.  The  military 
authorities  gave  ready  consent,  but  grave  questions 
were  at  issue  with  the  Aranda  family,  and,  detained 
by  these,  his  spirit  alternated  between  bitter  dis- 
couragement and  fevered  impatience.  "You  should 


256  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

know,"  he  writes  to  the  Due,  "  what  reasons  these 
are  which  must  keep  me  here  at  present,  and  will 
perhaps  deprive  me  of  the  one  possible  joy  after  my 
bitter  loss!  .  .  .  When  everything  was  arrayed 
against  me,  I  only  needed  to  be  robbed  of  the 
consolation  of  embracing  my  parents,  brothers,  and 
friends — all  that  I  care  most  for  in  this  world ! 
There  would  be  so  much  relief  in  that :  it  would  so 
help  me  to  fight  this  overwhelming  melancholy.  I 
assure  you  that  I  have  lived  through  bitter  days  of 
late.  How  I  have  missed  you  !  What  consolation 
I  could  have  found  in  your  company !  " 

The  Duchesse  de  Huescar's  name  seems  to  have 
vanished  from  Mora's  distracted  mind.  But  if  she 
does  not  appear  in  these  letters,  he  is  very  apparent 
in  the  elegies,  seguedillas>  and  harmonious  com- 
plaints with  which  she  solaces  her  furious  and 
lamentable  disappointment  until — and  that  at  no 
such  distant  date — his  faithlessness  is  overlaid  by 
the  willing  return  of  her  numerous  earlier  admirers. 
Moreover,  seven  years  later,  and  only  thirteen 
months  after  the  decease  of  the  Countess  de  Fuentes, 
she  married  the  Count,  and  so  sat  in  the  place  of 
her  who  had  beforetime  declined  to  receive  herself 
as  daughter-in-law — a  sequel  which  robs  her  of  any 
claim  to  our  sympathy  with  her  shattered  illusions. 

1  Casalbon  remarks  in  a  letter,  "  She  has  been  bled  twice,  but  this 
wretch  of  a  Mora  has  filled  her  with  such  ideas  that  nothing  serves 
to  divert  her  mind.  So  she  fills  her  days  with  seguedillas  on  absence 
and  inconstancy,  and  says  that  Diocletian  clearly  knew  nothing  of 
such  a  method  of  torture,  or  he  would  never  have  troubled  to  invent 
others." 


CHAPTER    X 

Changed  opinions  of  Mora — His  ill-health  and  discouragement — Similar 
ailments  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Violent  outburst  of  mutual 
passion — Initial  excitement  of  both — Mora  visits  Ferney,  and  is  warmly 
received  by  Voltaire  on  d'Alembert's  introduction — Return  to  Paris  and 
resumption  of  the  romance — Platonic  character  of  the  connection — Pro- 
jected marriage  with  Julie — Mora,  recalled  to  the  Spanish  army,  hands  in 
his  papers,  but  is  taken  seriously  ill  and  sent  to  Valentia — Violent  excite- 
ment of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Consequent  disappointment  of 
d'Alembert — He  travels  for  two  months — Sudden  return  of  Mora  to 
Paris — Renewed  passion,  and  relapse  of  Mora — His  father  insists  on  his 
leaving  France — Painful  parting  of  the  lovers. 

LATE  in  October,  the  last  difficulties  cleared  away, 
the  Marquis  de  Mora  hastened  to  Paris,  and  was 
soon  installed  in  his  old  apartment  in  the  hotel  in 
Rue  de  1'Universite.  But  the  being  who  now  occu- 
pied them  was  very  different  from  him  who  had 
gone  out  thence  a  bare  twenty  months  earlier :  then 
he  was  joyous  and  "petulant,"  overflowing  with 
vigour  and  life,  and  a  curious  seeker  after  all  things 
new ;  now  he  was  but  the  vague  ghost  of  that 
former  self.  Suffering  had  outrun  time  in  the  work- 
ing of  this  change,  and  the  germs  of  his  family's 
hereditary  scourge  had  possibly  seconded  both.  His 
letters  show  us  a  man  who  is  broken  and  tired  ;  who 
nourishes  no  more  illusions,  and  doubts  all  things, 
even  to  himself.  "But  there  is  no  remedy,"  he 
adds,  having  concluded  a  confession  of  his  feelings, 
"  and  this  dwelling  on  dolorous  subjects  can  only 
revive  their  pain.  I  was  born  unhappy ;  to  that 
lot  I  incline  me.  Ah !  if  I  might  have  the  consola- 
257  R 


258  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

tion  of  seeing  all  those  who  belong  to  me  happy, 
on  their  joy  my  joys  might  hang!  .  .  .  Friend, 
mine  years  be  few,  yet  where  is  the  man,  no  matter 
his  age,  whose  experience  of  this  life  is  harder  or 
more  varied  than  has  been  my  own !  I  think  that 
I  know  it :  I  know  that  I  think  little  of  it."  Doubt 
and  cynicism  join  hands  with  this  disgust.  "  Our 
Jorge"  [younger  brother  of  the  Due  de  Villa  Her- 
mosa]  "does  not  forget  to  amuse  himself  at  Madrid, 
and  he  does  well.  After  all,  what  is  there  which 
counts  for  more — in  this  world  ?  " 

Whether  or  no  Mora's  health  was  responsible  for 
this  temper,  it  certainly  gives  cause  for  anxiety  from 
henceforth.  The  letters  of  his  relatives  are  full  of 
remarks  on  his  pale  face  and  lack  of  flesh,  and  already 
in  November  he  himself  complains  to  Villa  Her- 
mosa :  "You  had  not  been  gone  an  hour  before  I 
was  taken  with  a  dizzy  fit,  and  so  with  high  fever 
which  lasted  all  night.  Consequently,  I  am  alto- 
gether limp — half  dead,  in  fact."  Such  incidents, 
presently  accompanied  by  haemorrhage,  now  became 
alarmingly  frequent. 

There  is  a  remarkable  analogy  between  the 
feeling  in  these  brief  fragments  and  Julie's  temper 
during  the  same  period.  She  also  is  tried,  finds  that 
life  has  no  savour,  is  without  profit  or  motive ;  yet 
avowedly  plunges  into  all  its  follies,  seeking  dis- 
traction and  secretly  afraid  that  it  may  not  come. 
Such,  surely,  is  the  confession  of  these  lines,  ad- 
dressed to  an  unknown  friend:  "When  I  was  young, 
I  surrendered  blindly  to  my  sensibilities,  until  I 
thought  that  they  must  cost  me  my  life,  as  they  did 


HER   DISCONTENT  259 

cost  me  my  health.  In  this  way  I  won  at  last  to  a 
calmer  and  sweeter  spirit,  understanding  that  life 
need  not  be  intolerable  if  only  we  will  amuse  and 
distract  ourselves,  and  cling  to  nothing  overmuch. 
This,  dear  Baron,  is  the  secret  of  my  life — the  life 
which,  you  say,  is  that  of  one  whose  heart  is  dissi- 
pated. Do  you  really  think  that  I  was  created  to 
pursue  amusement?  that,  if  reason  has  told  me  to 
pursue  its  courses,  my  heart  is  always  content  with 
them  ?  ...  Ah !  if  you  knew  the  price  that  I  have 
paid,  you  would  not  doubt  that  the  letters  of  Heloise 
affected  me  to  actual  physical  hurt." 

This  sincere  confession  provides  a  key  with 
which  to  read  Julie's  life,  to  understand  with  what 
feverish  desire  she  seeks  to  substitute  the  things  of 
the  mind  for  the  motions  of  her  passionate  tempera- 
ment and  secret  aspirations.  The  salons,  literature, 
society — all  become  distasteful  only  too  soon,  and 
she  leaves  them,  weary  and  disgusted,  to  come  back 
to  her  original  hunger  for  love,  for  sacrifice,  self- 
surrender,  and  suffering.  Let  her  strive  to  be  con- 
tent with  that  which  she  may  have  ;  to  be  satisfied, 
like  the  sage,  with  lesser  pleasures  and  moderate 
joys  —  her  violent  nature  overbears  reason,  and 
revolts  against  the  victual  wherewith  it  may  nowise 
be  filled.  In  other  times  she  might  have  turned  to 
the  sweet  consolations  of  piety,  have  satiated  her 
aspirations  with  the  passion  of  the  spirit.  These 
are  not  for  her,  or  for  her  age.  For  her,  as  for  it, 
comfort  does  not  wait  below  the  steps  of  the  altar, 
nor  may  prayer  warm  an  atmosphere  which  is  as  an 
icy  cloak  about  her  being.  One  remedy,  she  vaguely 


26o  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

feels,  might  assuage  her  woe — love  as  she  sees  it  in 
the  volumes  which  her  eyes  devour — the  love  of  high 
passion  and  mad  follies ;  the  passionate  love  which 
is  to  the  woman  of  her  day  all  religion  as  all  of 
morality ;  the  creed  which  she  shall  presently  cele- 
brate in  language  as  dithyrambic  as  any  inspired 
prophet  standing  before  his  sole  god.  "  Ah !  how 
high  is  this  love!  how  sublime!  Thee,  love,  I  honour, 
thee  I  celebrate,  as  very  virtue ! " 

Intercourse  between  persons  of  thus  similar  char- 
acters, and  so  prepared  for  mutual  comprehension, 
could  not  tarry  long  at  the  confines  of  friendship, 
nor  is  there  reason  to  suppose  that  it  did  so  even 
if  their  hearts  did  not  beat  in  unison  at  the  first 
moment  of  new  meeting.  Mora,  on  the  point  of 
leaving  Madrid,  answered  to  a  jesting  word  from 
Villa  Hermosa  :  "  I  cannot  imagine  what  fair  ladies 
you  say  await  my  return  to  Paris.  I  do  not  know 
myself  beholden  to  any  one  there,  so  please  believe 
that  your  presence  will  not  annoy  me  with  whomso- 
ever you  find  me."  Julie,  on  the  contrary,  was  wont 
to  date  her  soul's  rejuvenescence  from  the  time  when 
first  she  knew  Mora.  "Eight  years  ago  I  drew 
back  from  the  world,"  she  wrote  to  Guibert  on 
October  9th,  1774.  "From  the  moment  that  I 
loved,  its  successes  meant  nothing  to  me."  And 
in  1772,  on  the  eve  of  the  last  parting,  she  was  even 
more  explicit :  "  Six  years  of  joy  and  heavenly 
rapture  are  enough,  even  in  the  midst  of  despair, 
to  make  one  thank  the  Lord  who  made  us !  "  We 
need  not  read  into  this  passage  that  Julie  loved 
Mora  two  years  before  he  responded.  Her  ardent 


MORA'S    LOVE    FOR    HER          261 

imagination  was  perfectly  capable  of  crowning  with 
a  retrospective  halo  days  in  which  there  was  still  no 
more  than  a  vague  and  tender  attraction,  as  between 
two  good  friends.  But  whatever  the  truth  in  regard 
to  the  past,  the  couple  no  sooner  met  again  than 
passion  leaped  to  life.  Their  souls  greeted  each 
other  until  nature  did  but  exist  in  the  other's  eyes, 
all  else  being  lost,  even  to  almost  complete  oblivion 
of  the  disparity  between  their  ages.  "  When  I 
spoke  of  this  great  natural  disparity  in  years,  I  hurt 
him  until  he  had  soon  persuaded  me  that  as  we 
loved,  so  we  were  equals.  .  .  .  He  saw  my  soul 
and  knew  its  passion,  and  then  he  cared  little  for 
pride  of  such  a  kind."  It  seems,  indeed,  that  Julie's 
fiery  spirit  opened  a  new  world  to  this  young  man 
of  twenty-four,  notwithstanding  the  opportunities  for 
other  conquests  which  the  world  had  thrust  upon 
him.  For  her  he  forsook  all  earlier  interests ; 
philosophy,  literature,  political  ambition  no  longer 
exercised  their  old  appeal.  "  Ah  ! "  Julie  will  cry 
at  thought  of  this,  "I  surely  have  understood  the 
whole  price  of  life,  for  I  was  loved  indeed !  A 
soul  of  fire,  overflowing  with  energy  ;  which  had 
judged  all  and  appreciated  all,  and  which,  turning 
in  disgust  from  all,  abandoned  itself  to  the  need 
and  pleasure  of  love  .  .  .  thus  he  loved  me ! ' 
All  witnesses  attest  that  this  language  does  no 
more  than  state  the  truth.  Even  Marmontel, 
sceptic  that  he  is,  rises  to  the  language  of  passion 
at  sight  of  this.  "We  often  saw  him  in  adoration 
before  her ! " 

But  if  this  were  Mora's  case,  Julie's  transfigura- 


262  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

tion  is  hardly  to  be  described.  She  seems  as  it 
were  to  discover  her  true  nature,  and  for  the  first 
time  to  be  aware  of  what  she  is.  A  new  bloom 
obscures  past  shadows,  and  life  offers  itself  in  a  robe 
of  colours  heretofore  unguessed.  The  real  beginning 
of  the  Memoirs  which  she  commenced,  but  which 
have  perished,  would  date  from  this  period,  "as 
though  her  life  had  not  seemed  begun  until  they 
met."  In  the  factitious  atmosphere  of  the  salons 
where,  she  smartly  said,  most  Parisian  women  "  are 
content  with  a  preference,  having  no  need  of  '  to  be 
loved,' "  the  storm  which  fell  upon  her  reft  away  all 
borrowings,  and  all  those  conventional  masks  that 
not  even  her  honesty  had  completely  escaped,  and 
revealed  to  sight  the  real  woman,  the  human  creature 
always  apparent  in  moments  of  real  crisis.  Once 
Julie  loves,  she  becomes  the  woman  who  was  to 
write  to  Guibert :  "  I  have  for  you  a  feeling  wherein 
is  the  principle,  and  which  has  all  the  effects,  of  all 
the  virtues — indulgence,  kindness,  generosity,  con- 
fidence, surrender,  utter  abnegation  of  all  personal 
interests.  All  this  I  am  by  the  sole  thought  of  your 
love  for  me.  But  give  me  a  doubt,  and  my  soul, 
turned  upon  itself,  makes  me  crazy."  Henceforth 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  lives  only  for  her  con- 
queror, and  the  interest  of  all  her  interests  exists 
only  by  their  connection  with  him.  The  charming 
phrase  which  one  day  dropped  from  her  pen  is 
probably  to  be  derived  from  Mora  far  more  than 
from  his  successor  :  "  You  seem  to  have  a  right  over 
every  motion  and  every  feeling  in  my  soul.  I  owe 
you  account  of  every  thought,  nor  does  a  thought 


MORA   RECALLED  263 

seem  mine  until  the  sharing  it  with  you  has  won  me 
a  right  therein." 

In  raptures  of  this  kind,  untroubled  by  a  single 
shadow,  the  couple  spent  the  winter  and  spring  of 
1768.  Long  years  afterwards,  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse  still  remembered  it  as  the  most  delightful 
period  in  all  her  life.  It  suffered  the  usual  curtail- 
ment of  all  things  idyllic.  Mora's  leave  expired  at 
the  close  of  May,  and  he  was  also  pledged  to  make 
the  inescapable  pilgrimage  to  Ferney  with  his  in- 
separable friend,  Villa  Hermosa — a  pilgrimage  now 
the  absolute  duty  of  all  followers  of  the  new  doctrine. 
Julie  was  far  from  opposing  a  project  so  consonant 
with  her  creed  ;  but  much  as  this  disinterestedness 
cost  her,  it  was  also  to  involve  her  best  friend. 
Women  deeply  in  love  are  often  unconsciously 
cruel,  and  Julie  certainly  inflicted  pain  when  she 
charged  d'Alembert  to  see  that  Mora  received  from 
the  Master  the  attention  which,  in  her  eyes,  was  his 
clear  due. 

The  philosopher  obeyed  with  grace,  and  even 
exerted  himself  more  than  need  have  been  necessary; 
becoming  in  this  a  spectacle  at  once  pathetic,  sad- 
dening, and  almost  comic — a  fact  unfortunately  too 
often  observable  in  his  attitude  towards  the  affairs 
of  her  for  whom  his  heart  was  so  fond.  Had  he 
been  Julie's  husband  in  fact  he  could  not,  indeed, 
have  more  fully  justified  the  traditional  blindness  of 
such.  Because  his  heart  is  fixed,  his  constancy  proof 
against  all,  his  devotion  tireless,  therefore  is  his 
friend  as  sure  as  himself,  and  the  eye  of  very  day 
incapable  of  seeing  any  duplicity  in  her  word  or 


264  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

deed.  Deeply  versed  as  he  is  in  philosophy, 
d'Alembert  was  yet  to  learn  that  love  cannot  be 
bought  by  any  service,  and  that  sentiment  is  bound 
by  no  duties  except  such  as  it  creates  for  itself.  He 
is  incapable  of  supposing  that  any  newcomer  can 
possess  himself  of  the  heritage  which  he  has  so 
richly  deserved,  and  the  visible  passion  of  Mademoi- 
selle de  Lespinasse  seems  to  him  no  more  than  the 
expression  of  her  sympathies,  a  temporary  fancy  or 
simple  friendship.  So  impossible  was  it  for  him  to 
understand  her  as  she  was,  that  his  "Portrait"  of 
her,  written  in  1771,  contains  the  remarkable  charge 
that  her  chief  fault  is  coldness  of  heart :  "  The  fault 
with  which  I  might  reproach  you — and  I  do  but 
whisper  it  in  your  ear — is  that  you  are  ignorant  of 
the  meaning  of  passion." 

D'Alembert  did  not  escape  the  contagion  of 
Mora's  popularity.  The  letter  sent  to  Voltaire 
at  Julie's  instance  confesses  this :  "  Dear  and  old 
friend,  I  have  somewhat  to  ask  of  you,  and  I 
sincerely  trust  that  you  will  not  refuse  my  request. 
.  .  .  There  is  here  a  young  Spaniard  of  high  birth 
and  the  highest  merit,  a  son  of  his  country's  am- 
bassador to  the  Court  of  France,  and  son-in-law  of 
Count  d'Aranda  who  expelled  the  Jesuits.  You 
now  perceive  my  young  man's  credentials,  but  these 
are  in  no  sense  his  only  merits.  I  have  seen  few 
foreigners  of  his  age  with  a  better  sense  of  pro- 
portion, a  clearer  head,  more  enlightened  or  more 
cultivated.  He  is  young,  a  noble,  and  a  Spaniard, 
but  I  do  not  exaggerate.  He  is  about  to  return  to 
Spain,  and  you  need  not  wonder  that,  after  what  I 


VOLTAIRE    RECEIVES   MORA      265 

have  said,  he  is  anxious  first  to  see  and  to  talk  with 
you.  ...  I  will  wager  that  after  his  visit  you  will  only 
thank  me  for  this  introduction.  ...  A  young  foreigner 
of  this  kind  makes  me  blush  for  our  native  puppies  !  " 

Voltaire's  reply  was  couched  in  the  tone  to  be 
expected.  A  grandee  of  Spain,  Mora's  other  quali- 
fications apart,  was  no  such  daily  visitor  at  Ferney 
that  the  idea  of  his  homage  should  not  please  "  the 
patriarch,"  and  Mora,  with  Villa  Hermosa,  left  Paris 
on  April  26th,  assured  of  a  ready  welcome  when  their 
journey  should  end  at  Geneva.  The  parting  with 
Julie  was  sad,  but  where  is  the  need  of  anguish  when 
two  people  are  conscious  of  mutual  love,  and  have 
absolute  faith  in  each  other's  vows  of  fidelity  ?  Each 
was,  further,  assured  that  the  parting  could  be  of  no 
long  duration,  even  should  Mora  buy  his  ability  to 
return  by  resigning  his  commission.  He  was,  it 
seems,  pledged  to  this  step,  did  it  prove  necessary. 

Forty-eight  hours  later,  the  travellers  alighted 
at  Ferney,  in  their  hands  a  second  letter  from  the 
zealous  d'Alembert.  This  was,  if  possible,  even 
more  enthusiastic  than  the  first.  "  Monsieur  the 
Marquis  de  Mora  is  good  enough  to  carry  this  letter, 
although  he  will  require  no  introduction  when  once 
you  have  spoken  a  few  words  with  him.  You  will 
find  him  a  man  after  your  own  pattern  in  heart 
and  spirit  alike — upright,  clear,  sensible,  cultivated, 
and  enlightened,  in  no  way  pedantic  or  dull.  Mon- 
sieur the  Due  de  Villa  Hermosa,  his  travelling 
companion,  is  one  with  him  in  deserving  to  see 
you  as  in  desiring  so  to  do.  I  have  told  you  that 
you  will  thank  me  for  the  pleasure  of  this  visit. 


266  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

You  will  also  congratulate  Spain  on  the  possession 
of  such  sons,  and  you  will  only  wish  that  our  nobles 
were  on  their  model  instead  of  on  that  of  our 
Conseillers  de  Cour,  imbeciles  and  barbarians,  our 
dancing  girls  and  our  Opera  Comique."  .  .  . 
Which  Voltaire  received  visitors  thus  introduced 
needs  no  telling.  He  showed  himself,  as  he  well 
knew  how,  the  kindest  of  hosts,  the  most  charming 
of  men.  He  never  left  them  during  the  three  entire 
days  for  which  he  detained  them,  and  all  the  while 
he  mingled  his  sagest  talk  with  the  most  daring 
humours,  lavishing  his  astonishing  spirit  and  his 
incomparable  facility. 

The  young  men  departed  lost  in  admiration, 
while  the  sage  declared  himself  charmed  in  turn, 
and  he  found  it  necessary  to  proclaim  their  praises 
by  answering  d'Alembert's  letter  on  the  very  day 
of  their  departure.  "  May  the  Being  of  beings 
pour  favour  upon  His  favourite  d'Aranda,  His 
dearest  Mora,  and  His  well-beloved  Villa  Hermosa! 
A  new  day  dawns  upon  the  Iberians,  for  whom  the 
custom-house  of  thought  no  longer  bars  the  way 
to  truth  as  for  the  Welsh.1  The  claws  are  cut 
for  the  monster  of  the  Inquisition.  ..."  Voltaire 
repeats  the  same  tone  when  he  writes  to  his  re- 
gular correspondents,  the  Marquis  de  Villevieille, 
d'Argental,  Dupont,  and  Pasteur  Jacob  Vernes. 
To  all  these  he  makes  especial  mention  of  the  visit, 
and  emphatically  proclaims  his  faith  in  Mora's 
glorious  future.  "  He  is  a  young  man  of  the  rarest 

1  Welche  or  Velche.  Originally  any  uncouth  or  ignorant  alien, 
e.g.  the  Welsh  (Celts  generally).  For  use  here,  cf.  Matthew  Arnold's 
Philistines. 


MORA   RETURNS    TO    PARIS       267 

merit.  You  will  probably  see  him  as  he  passes, 
and  he  will  astonish  you.  ...  I  pray  you  see  to 
it  that  he  is  presently  admitted  to  the  Ministry 
(in  Spain),  and  I'll  warrant  that  he  will  ably 
second  Count  d'Aranda  in  bringing  a  new  era 
to  his  country." 

Voltaire's  enthusiasm  led  him  astray  on  one 
point  at  least.  Mora  had  little  desire,  at  this  time, 
either  "to  give  Spain  free  access  to  all  the  good 
books  wherein  man  may  acquire  a  hatred  of  fana- 
ticism," or  "  to  file  the  teeth  of  this  monster,  the 
Inquisition";  for  his  head  was  fully  occupied  with 
the  one  thought  of  how  he  might  devise  means  for 
returning  to  Paris  and  Julie.  Thus,  after  the  two 
friends  separated  at  Geneva,  the  diplomat  to  re- 
turn to  Paris,  the  colonel  to  Madrid,  the  latter  had 
scarcely  taken  up  his  duties  than  he  began  a  vain 
siege  of  the  Ministry  for  War  which,  at  the  end  of 
several  months,  still  resisted  all  his  applications  for 
fresh  leave.  He  had  not,  however,  decided  to  take 
the  final  step  and  hand  in  his  papers,  when  family 
affairs  once  more  secured  his  liberty.  Despite  their 
disparity  in  years — she  was  but  sixteen  and  he 
nearly  forty — a  lively  attachment  existed  between 
Villa  Hermosa  and  Mora's  sister,  Maria  Manuela 
Pignatelli.  Mora  was  only  too  pleased  to  press  his 
friend's  suit,  and  the  marriage  was  solemnised  on 
June  i,  1769,  in  the  palace  of  Count  d'Aranda,  who 
stood  proxy  for  the  husband,  detained  at  the  Em- 
bassy in  Paris.  Mora  stood  witness  for  his  sister, 
and  the  special  occasion  gained  him  permission  to 
start  next  day  for  Paris,  there  to  deliver  the  bride 


268  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

to  her  husband.  The  journey  was  made  in  state — 
with  four  carriages  and  fifteen  horsemen  for  escort 
— and  after  eighteen  days  upon  the  road,  the  arrival 
of  brother  and  sister  at  Paris  on  June  2Oth,  added 
four  joyful  hearts  to  the  city's  tale. 

The  days  which  followed  the  new  meeting  of 
Julie  and  Mora  were  the  golden  age  in  both  their 
lives.  Separation  may  cool  an  affection  which  is  less 
than  absolute ;  theirs  had  triumphed  over  distance. 
Earlier  moments  might  have  yielded  more  tumul- 
tuous bliss  ;  there  was  added  to  these  days  that  sense 
of  security  and  happy  pride  which  is  born  of  the 
certification  that  all  is  indeed  well.  It  was,  none 
the  less,  those  earlier  raptures .  that  Julie  was  so 
passionately  to  celebrate  at  a  later  time  :  "  .  .  .  the 
most  charming  and  perfect  of  all  creatures  .  .  .," 
"he  who  alone  taught  me  real  joy  .  .  .,'*  to  whom 
she  owed  it  that  "for  some  few  moments  I  knew 
how  priceless  life  may  be."  "  I  was  loved,"  she 
cries  then,  "  in  a  way  beyond  reach  of  imagination. 
All  passions  whereof  I  have  read  were  feeble  and 
cold  beside  this  of  Monsieur  de  Mora.  It  filled  his 
life.  Think  if  it  filled  mine!"  And  when  she 
answers  for  the  manner  in  which  she  repaid  this  love 
to  "this  strong  soul,  impassioned  for  the  pleasure  of 
being  loved,"  she  puts  these  words  in  the  mouth  of 
him  who  is  then  dead  :  "  Comparing  the  loves  of 
which  he  had  been,  and  yet  was,  the  recipient,  he 
would  ceaselessly  say  :  '  They  surely  are  not  worthy 
to  become  your  scholars.  Your  soul  was  warmed 
by  the  sun  of  Lima  ;  my  countrywomen  are  as  if 
they  were  born  under  the  glaciers  of  Lapland.' " 


PLATONIC    PASSION  269 

Such  violent  expression  of  violent  emotion  must 
raise  the  delicate  problem  whether  or  no  this  friend- 
ship between  two  thus  ardent  hearts,  both  free,  both 
emancipated  from  the  thraldom  of  conscience,  and 
disdaining  social  conventions,  can  have  remained 
platonic.  Most  modern  biographers  deny  that  there 
can  be  a  doubt  upon  the  point — even  forgetting  that 
Julie  was  afterwards  the  mistress  of  Guibert.  This 
argument  need  not  hold  good,  nor  do  I  believe  in 
the  correctness  of  this  verdict.  For  not  only  did 
no  single  one  of  Julie's  contemporaries  suspect 
her  relations  with  Mora,  but  the  one  compiler  of 
memoirs  who  alludes  to  the  matter  specifically  affirms 
that  these  relations  were  purely  platonic.  Madame 
Suard  records  that  "  The  story  of  her  connection 
with  Monsieur  de  Mora  she  both  wrote  of,  and 
confided  to,  Monsieur  Suard,  who  had  her  permis- 
sion to  tell  me.  I  can  affirm  that  letters  and  con- 
versation formed  all  the  communication  which  ever 
these  two  had  one  with  the  other." 

Final  as  this  statement  seems,  Julie's  own  con- 
duct at  this  time  seems  only  more  so.  In  Guibert's 
case  Julie  errs  on  the  side  of  overmuch  precaution 
and  mystery :  she  cannot  sufficiently  display  her 
connection  with  Monsieur  de  Mora.  She  speaks 
of  him — "glorying  in  it,"  says  Madame  de  la 
Ferte  Imbault — in  conversation  with,  and  in  letters 
to,  her  intimates — Suard,  Condorcet,  even  to  some 
of  her  woman  friends  ;  and  this  until  it  becomes 
matter  for  common  talk  among  them,  while  d'Alem- 
bert  remains  almost  alone  in  declining  to  see  more 
than  mere  friendship  between  the  couple.  Julie 


27o  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

is  equally  open  and  lacking  in  self-consciousness 
where  Mora's  family  is  concerned.  She  sees  them 
frequently,  and  receives  them  freely — Count  de 
Fuentes,  Luis  Pignatelli,  and  Villa  Hermosa.  The 
one  member  of  the  family  whom  she  has  never  met 
is  the  latter's  wife,  and  this  by  no  will  of  her  own. 
"  How  I  wish  to  know  her!  How  gladly  I  would 
live  with  her ! "  she  writes.  Mora  consistently 
opposed  this  meeting,  alleging  a  fear  lest  Julie's 
excitable  spirit  should  work  too  much  upon  this 
morbid  sister's  excessive  affection  for  himself;  but 
the  real  reason  seems  to  have  been  that  this  sister 
was  jealous  of  Julie,  and  her  brother  consequently 
feared  a  scene.  This  young  Duchesse  apart, 
nothing  could  be  more  cordial  than  was  the  atti- 
tude of  all  the  Fuentes  family  towards  their  son's 
friend.  They  send  her  daily  bulletins  when  he  is 
ill  in  Paris,  and  the  same  when  he  is  dying  at 
Madrid ;  while,  on  the  morrow  of  his  death,  the 
desolate  father  begs  Julie  to  use  all  her  influence 
with  d'Alembert  in  order  to  persuade  him  to  write 
the  Memorial  Portrait  of  this  lost  subject  of  all  his 
hopes  and  ambitions.  Everything,  indeed,  points 
to  the  fact  that  neither  the  family  of  Mora  nor 
Julie's  own  friends  ever  doubted  the  real  innocence 
of  their  relations. 

Little  doubt  as  may  now  remain,  this  contention 
can  still  be  supported  by  even  stronger  proofs  in 
the  form  of  certain  passages  taken  from  hitherto 
unpublished  letters  written  by  Julie  to  Guibert. 
Writing  as  she  may  write  to  the  man  to  whom  she 
has  willingly  and  freely  given  herself,  she  calls  him 


PLATONIC   PASSION  271 

to  witness  that  he  alone,  as  the  first,  has  triumphed 
over  her  long  hesitations  and  honesty,  and  re- 
proaches him — with  scant  justice — of  having  brought 
upon  her  that  remorse  and  self-disgust  which,  she 
says,  are  breaking  her  down.  "  That  momentary 
folly  crushes  my  life.  To  have  kept  my  honesty 
until  I  knew  you  seems  vain  indeed,  for  what 
matters  that  which  I  have  been,  when  I  have  been 
false  to  the  right  and  to  myself ;  and,  lost  to  my  own 
good  opinion,  how  can  I  pretend  to  yours  ?  Or,  if 
you  do  not  esteem  me,  how  blind  myself  and  believe 
in  your  love?"  ...  "I  am  become  an  object  of 
scorn,  and  because  I  loved  you.  Because  I  gave 
it  into  your  hands,  you  have  doubted  of  my  love, 
and  as  I  sacrificed  my  honesty  to  you,  so  you  have 
ceased  to  esteem  me.  All  this  is  rightly  the  fruit 
and  the  price  of  abandoning  virtue."  Such  lan- 
guage is  scarcely  open  to  two  interpretations.  The 
Julie  who  was  truthful  to  tactlessness  in  her  rela- 
tions with  the  man  whom  she  loved,  whose  frank- 
ness risked  the  alienation  of  a  heart  dearer  to  her 
than  her  own  life,  is  no  woman  to  have  stooped  to 
so  meanly  useless  a  lie. 

This  argument  has  not  been  set  out  in  response 
to  the  somewhat  vain  temptation  which  besets  a 
biographer  the  conduct  of  whose  heroine  has  fallen 
short  of  the  ideal,  and  whom  he  would  therefore 
endeavour  to  whitewash.  It  seems,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  provide  an  explanation  of  certain  things 
in  the  later  career  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse 
that  have  not  heretofore  been  clear,  in  especial — 
though  it  is  not  as  excusing  it — of  the  act  which 


272  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Julie  was  later  to  stigmatise  as  "her  treason." 
Those  who  cannot  credit  a  thus  obstinate  virtue  on 
the  part  of  so  fiery  and  so  emancipated  a  woman, 
are  easily  answered,  and  this  without  bringing  into 
account  the  innate  clinging  to  the  letter  of  chastity, 
or  that  physical  and  moral  repulsion  to  the  final 
step  which  so  many  women  find  a  stronger  defence 
than  all  the  pricks  of  conscience  or  the  promptings 
of  religion.  With  no  desire  to  diminish  her  credit 
in  the  matter,  less  lofty  motives  and  far  more  com- 
monplace ideas  were  the  determining  factors  in  her 
resistance.  It  is  now  established  that,  almost  from 
the  first  days  of  their  intimacy,  this  couple  had 
thoughts  of  its  natural  sequel — marriage.  This 
idea,  so  far  from  fading,  grew  day  by  day,  and  it 
was  not  for  lack  of  the  mutual  resolution  that  Julie 
de  Lespinasse  did  not  become  the  Marquis  de 
Mora's  wife. 

Carefully  as  the  couple  guarded  this  secret,  it 
was  still  suspected  by  more  than  one  contemporary. 
The  Mtmdres  de  Marmontel  contain  a  note  to  this 
effect,  and  the  cynic  proceeds  to  hint  that  Julie,  more 
ambitious  than  loving,  played  her  part  in  order  to 
secure  a  brilliant  match.  Morellet,  Marmontel's 
uncle,  has  left  a  note  of  energetic  protest  against 
this  slander,  which  indeed  requires  no  refutation. 
But  while  he  asserts  its  falseness,  he  is  equally 
explicit  in  respect  of  Julie's  desire  to  be  married. 
"  And  small  harm  in  that,"  he  adds,  truly  enough 
The  whole  affair  would,  none  the  less,  remain  con- 
jectural, were  it  not  for  the  new  documents  to  which 
I  have  had  access.  Thus  Count  Villeneuve  Guibert 


PROJECTED    MARRIAGE  273 

possesses  a  MS.  note  by  Madame  Guibert  asserting 
that  Mora's  own  brother,  Luis  Pignatelli,  told  her 
that  they  were  engaged,  and  would  have  been 
married  but  for  her  faithlessness  and  my  brother's 
death.  Suard,  in  whom  she  confided,  writes  quite 
openly  to  her :  "  I  would  gladly  have  heard  more 
of  your  affair,  and  learned  the  present  state  of 
your  hopes.  When  shall  I  be  able  to  congratu- 
late you  ?  You  owe  me  good  news,  if  only  to 
console  me  for  having  suffered  communication  of 
the  bad!"  Julie  herself  refers  to  the  fact  most 
transparently  in  a  letter  to  Guibert  which  there 
will  presently  be  reason  to  quote.  Finally,  the 
family  papers  of  the  Due  de  Villa  Hermosa  con- 
tain numerous  letters  in  which  the  Fuentes  family 
freely  express  their  disquiet  at  this  intention  of 
the  heir  of  the  house. 

The  real  truth  of  the  matter  seems  to  be  that 
Mora  was  early  anxious  to  have  an  open  engage- 
ment, while  Julie  de  Lespinasse  was  very  creditably 
desirous  that  he  should  take  time  to  consider  the 
indubitable  facts  of  her  age,  poverty,  and  illegiti- 
mate birth.  But  she  was  not  too  loth  to  be  per- 
suaded, and  when  her  lover  continued  to  answer 
all  objections  with  the  simple  formula,  "Since  we 
love,  all  is  equal  between  us,"  she  presently  yielded. 
The  Fuentes  family,  none  too  pleased  at  the  pro- 
spect of  which  they  were  perfectly  aware,  although 
the  Marquis  never  directly  admitted  them  into  his 
confidence,  took  the  usual  method  of  bodily  deport- 
ing their  son  from  the  area  of  influence.  Asserting 
that  his  always  poor  health  was  the  worse  for  his 

s 


274  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

sojourn  in  Paris,  they  ordered  him  off  to  his  regi- 
ment in  Catalonia.  Resistance  was  not  to  be 
thought  of  in  a  day  when  parental  and  military 
authority  were  equally  binding,  and  he  therefore 
obeyed  without  a  murmur,  though  secretly  deter, 
mined  to  secure  independence  at  all  costs.  The 
spring  of  1770  was  thus  occupied  in  arguments 
with  his  friends  and  his  family,  and  the  latter 
deemed  that  they  had  surely  won  when,  two  months 
after  his  return  to  Spain  (April),  the  Marquis 
was  gazetted  General  of  Brigade  at  the  age  of 
twenty-six,  and  was  further  nominated  to  a  post 
with  the  Court.  "  I  was  extremely  pleased  to  hear 
the  news,"  writes  the  Marquis  de  Castimente  to  his 
cousin,  Villa  Hermosa.  "He  has  abilities  above 
the  ordinary,  and  they  will  now  have  an  oppor- 
tunity for  recognition."  "  I  cannot  say  whether  he 
is  pleased,"  replies  the  excellent  brother-in-law, 
"  but  I  can  express  my  own  pleasure,  for  his  ability 
can  hardly  be  overstated." 

These  congratulations  were  short-lived,  for  only 
a  brief  while  had  passed  before  the  young  general 
cut  short  his  brilliant  prospects  by  formally  sending 
in  his  papers.  The  alleged  reason  was  poor  health, 
only  too  true  a  plea  ;  but  no  one  pretended  to  believe 
that  this  was  more  than  an  honourable  pretext. 
Abbe  Galiani  was  fain  to  comfort  Villa  Hermosa 
in  this  style  :  "  I  am  sure  that  he  has  sent  in  his 
papers,  because  this  was  the  worst  thing  he  could 
do !  ...  But  it's  not  philosophy,  forwards  or  back- 
wards, which  is  responsible.  However,  no  need  to 
fear  for  his  fortune,  since  he  can  blow  it  thirty  times 


MORA'S   RELAPSE  275 

and  still  find  means  to  recover  himself."  The  lover 
was  further  from  thoughts  of  his  "fortune"  than 
anything  else.  Paris,  and  there  to  remain  for  ever 
with  his  lady,  were  his  only  ideas,  and  he  spent 
the  rest  of  the  year  wrestling  with  the  remaining 
obstacles  to  the  fulfilment  of  this — the  real  reason 
for  which  he  had  sought  freedom.  They  had  all 
yielded,  and  the  day  for  his  departure  was  fixed, 
when  a  new  obstacle  arose,  more  grave  and  more 
dangerous  than  all  which  had  preceded  it,  in  an 
attack  such  as  he  had  never  before  experienced. 
On  January  25,  1771,  the  Marquis  was  prostrated 
by  violent  blood-spitting,  high  fever,  and  a  fainting 
fit  so  deep  and  so  protracted  that  he  was  at  one 
time  believed  gone  beyond  recall.  He  recovered  ; 
but  not  so  his  plans,  for  the  doctors  asserted  that 
both  his  lungs  were  failing. 

The  sole  possible  remedy,  they  averred,  was  to 
winter  in  some  such  climate  as  that  of  Valencia, 
"  one  of  the  most  delicious  in  Europe."  Jorge 
Azbor  Aragon,  Villa  Hermosa's  younger  brother, 
happened  to  be  there,  and  to  him  Mora  went  with 
despair  in  his  heart,  notwithstanding  the  com- 
panionship of  two  devoted  friends  who  insisted 
on  accompanying  him  and  his  doctor,  Navarro. 
The  end  of  the  journey  found  him  in  a  state  of 
collapse,  but  two  months  later  Jorge  Azbor  was 
joyously  telling  his  brother  of  the  patient's  almost 
miraculous  recovery.  "  Mora  is  fatter  and  a  pleas- 
anter  spectacle  than  ever  before  ;  but  as  his  lungs 
have  not  entirely  ceased  to  pain  him,  I  think  his 
father  should  veto  his  leaving  here  just  yet."  A 


276  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

subsequent  report  gives  us  a  strange  picture  of 
contemporary  medical  opinion.  "  It  will  please  you 
to  learn  that  Mora's  strength  increases  daily  ;  so 
much  so,  that  the  doctors  are  considering  whether 
they  should  not  bleed  him  again,  because,  so  long 
as  there  is  pain  in  his  lungs,  too  much  vigour  must 
prejudice  a  cure.  ...  I  repeat,  that  he  ought  to 
remain  here  until  his  lungs  are  completely  healed." 

Julie's  anxiety,  and  sad  alternations  of  hope  and 
fear,  during  this  period  may  be  imagined.  Indeed, 
as  long  as  Mora  was  ill,  the  arrival  of  the  bi-weekly 
post  from  Spain  always  brought  this  impressionable 
watcher  a  high  fever,  followed  by  "convulsions." 
None  of  the  almost  daily  letters  which  now  passed 
between  them  survive,  but  while  the  nature  of  their 
contents  will  not  fall  into  doubt  on  this  score,  the 
following  plea  with  which  Julie  accompanied  one  of 
Mora's  compositions  that  she  sent  to  Suard  has  its 
interest :  "  I  have  a  certain  hesitation  in  showing 
you  this  letter,  for  while  it  shows  his  real  character 
it  does  scant  justice  to  his  intellect.  He  is  a 
foreigner,  and  throws  off  these  letters  in  the  heat 
of  the  moment,  so  believe  me  that  his  brain  is  as 
good  as  his  heart,  and  I  felt  this  before  I  loved 
him."  This  line,  written  by  a  man  (Guibert)  who 
saw  fragments  of  Julie's  letters  to  Mora,  may  also 
be  cited  :  "  They  had  all  the  vivacity  and  ardours 
of  her  talk,  and  to  receive  them  almost  persuaded 
one  that  their  lines  were  not  written  but  were  her 
proper  speech." 

Mora's  illness  brought  trouble  to  himself  and  to 
Julie,  but  d'Alembert  possibly  suffered  yet  more. 


JULIE'S    DISTRACTION  277 

He  lodged  with  her,  and  she  was  not  a  good  master 
of  her  feelings  in  these  days  of  anguished  soul 
and  body,  excited  days  and  sleepless  nights. 
Her  always  uncertain  temper  grew  daily  worse, 
and  was  now  plainly  acid,  if  not  spiteful ;  now  so 
miserable  that  she  would  pass  days  together  before 
the  fire,  absorbed  in  silent  contemplation  of  her 
woe.  Rightly  attributing  all  this  to  her  anxiety 
for  her  friend,  d'Alembert  would  attempt  to  help 
her  by  hastening  to  fetch  his  letter  as  each  Spanish 
post  fell  due  ;  but  in  vain  did  he  rise  at  dawn,  or — 
man  of  clockwork  regularity  that  he  was — postpone 
his  breakfast  in  order  to  curtail  her  vigil  by  a  few 
moments.  "There's  not  a  wretched  porter  in  this 
city,"  says  Grimm,  "  who  runs  half  as  many  weary 
errands  as  our  First  Geometrician  in  Europe, 
our  Chief  of  the  Encyclopaedists,  the  Arbiter  of 
Academies,  in  his  daily  morning  service  for  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse."  Julie  thanked  him,  but 
was  at  once  reabsorbed  in  her  distracted  reveries 
and  icy  despair.  D'Alembert  was  almost  morbidly 
sensitive,  and,  the  more  that  he  could  not  properly 
understand  her  reasons,  he  took  this  treatment  so 
to  heart  that  his  always  delicate  health  was  under- 
mined by  an  attack  of  such  acute  sleeplessness  as 
rendered  him  well-nigh  incapable  of  work — his 
supreme  consoler.  His  letters  to  Voltaire,  Pere 
Paciaudi,  and  his  other  correspondents,  are  full  of 
this  unhappy  state.  He  complains  that  he  is  weak, 
tired,  and  depressed ;  his  body  useless  and  his  head 
empty  ;  that  he  is  silly  with  discouragement  and 
sadness.  "And  who  knows  how  long  it  will 


278  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

last?       I    had    rather    be   dead   than    continue    to 
endure  it." 

D'Alembert's  laments  were  presently  so  justified 
by  his  condition,  that  the  latter  even  forced  itself 
on  Julie's  distressed  vision.  She  was  deeply  sorry, 
and  probably  also  remorseful.  Conscious  of  her 
impotence,  she  appealed  to  Condorcet  in  a  letter 
which  breathes  real  anxiety  for  her  devoted  friend  : 
"  Come  to  my  help,  sir !  I  conjure  you  to  do  this, 
for  friendship's  and  your  virtue's  sake  alike.  Your 
friend,  Monsieur  d'Alembert,  is  in  the  most  alarm- 
ing state.  He  is  wasting  enough  to  frighten  one, 
does  not  sleep,  and  eats  only  because  reason  com- 
mands him  so  to  do.  Worse  than  all,  he  has  fallen 
into  the  most  frightful  melancholia,  and  feeds  his 
soul  with  grief  and  sadness.  He  has  lost  his 
activity,  and  has  no  will  left.  In  a  word,  he  must 
either  die  or  be  dragged  out  of  this  slough  by  main 
force."  Julie's  suggested  remedy  is  the  classical  one 
of  a  tour  in  some  fair  land,  with  its  enforced  dis- 
tractions of  new  scenes  and  fresh  surroundings. 
She  presses  this  scheme  by  many  arguments,  and 
was  probably  unwittingly  the  more  anxious  to 
compass  it  on  account  of  the  relief  which  she  would 
obtain  were  his  temporarily  importunate  affection 
spared  her,  and  herself  free  from  this  witness  to 
her  tears.  "We  have  joined  hands  to  persuade 
him  to  try  a  change  of  scene — a  tour  in  Italy. 
He  does  not  quite  refuse,  but  he  will  never  consent 
to  go  alone — not  that  I  should  wish  him  to  do  so. 
He  has  need  of  a  friend's  helping  care,  and  these 
he  must  find  in  some  one  like  yourself."  Here 


ILL-HEALTH    OF    D'ALEMBERT     279 

follows  a  plan  of  campaign  for  overcoming  his 
expected  reluctance,  and  Julie  insists  that  her 
share  in  all  this  must  be  kept  secret.  The  sheet 
concludes  with  this  postscript:  "  Monsieur  d'Alem- 
bert  has  just  surprised  me  over  this  letter,  and  I 
have  confessed  that  it  has  to  do  with  his  Italian 
tour.  He  seems  to  have  made  up  his  mind.  Here 
is  your  starting-point.  Make  haste  to  work  from 
it.  ...  Come,  then,  come !  or  do  not,  at  all  events, 
think  a  thought  or  make  a  move  except  with  this 
object  in  view." 

D'Alembert  yielded,  and  Condorcet  was  ready 
to  obey  Julie's  behest ;  but  here  a  more  difficult 
obstacle  had  to  be  faced  in  lack  of  means  for  the 
journey,  for  the  philosopher's  purse  was  not  deep 
enough  for  such  a  demand.  At  this  juncture  he 
remembered  the  royal  friend  whose  help  he  had 
once  disdained,  and  pocketing  his  pride,  he  wrote 
to  Frederic  the  Great  in  terms  which  were  almost 
those  of  a  suppliant :  "  My  health,  Sire,  fails  daily, 
and,  while  I  cannot  cope  with  even  the  lightest 
work,  I  am  eternally  sleepless  and  too  terribly 
depressed.  My  friends  and  the  doctors  unani- 
mously advise  me  that  the  Italian  tour  is  my  last 
hope.  Sire,  my  poverty  refuses  me  this  remedy, 
and  yet  it  is  all  that  stands  between  me  and  the 
prospect  of  a  slow  and  cruel  death.  ...  I  am  told 
that  this  journey  means  an  expense  of  some  2000 
crowns,  if  it  be  done  with  any  comfort  such  as  is 
indispensable  to  one  in  my  infirm  and  broken  state. 
I  am  therefore  emboldened  to  ask  so  much  of  Your 
Majesty.  ..."  Frederic  sent  the  money  within 


280  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

fifteen  days,  but  he  could  not  refrain  from  accom- 
panying the  gift  with  an  epigram:  "The  thought 
that  these  so-accursed  kings  can  yet  be  of  some 
service  to  the  philosophers  pleases  me,  for  thus  they 
may  still  seem  good  for  something." 

D'Alembert  and  Condorcet  set  out  for  Italy  in 
October,  and  having  resolved  to  see  Switzerland  on 
the  way,  they  inevitably  found  themselves  at  Ferney. 
Here  Voltaire  proved  so  good  a  host,  and  the  tone 
of  the  house  so  salutary  to  his  visitor's  ills,  that  the 
tour  ended  before  it  was  well  begun,  for  d'Alembert 
had  no  sooner  recovered  his  sleep  and  spirits  than 
the  thought  of  further  separation  from  his  friend 
became  intolerable.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that 
November  saw  him  back  in  Rue  Saint  Dominique, 
with  scarce  1500  livres  of  Frederic's  2000  crowns 
spent.  He  duly  deposited  the  balance  with  the 
royal  bankers,  but  since  the  King  declined  to  take 
it  back,  it  was  afterwards  devoted  to  charity. 
"  Monsieur  d'Alembert  does  well  since  he  came 
back,"  Pere  Paciaudi  wrote  to  Condorcet  soon  after 
the  former's  return  ;  "he  needed  his  taste  of  travel 
the  better  to  appreciate  the  sweetness  of  repose  and 
the  gentle  life  with  a  few  friends."' 

While  d'Alembert's  thoughts  at  Ferney  turned 
to  the  humble  lodging  of  himself  and  his  friend,  until 
he  could  no  longer  withstand  their  promptings,  and 
must  follow  them  home,  other  aspirations,  from  a 
spot  many  hundred  of  miles  away,  experienced  the 
same  imperious  attraction,  and  were  doubtless  more 
deeply  shared  by  the  philosopher's  co-tenant.  "In 
the  blest  land"  of  Valencia,  Mora  chafed  bitterly  as 


MORA'S    RETURN  281 

his  strength  returned,  and  his  irritable  temper  was 
apt  to  fall  as  unkindly  upon  the  friends  who  kept 
him  there  as  did  Julie's  upon  her  equally  devoted 
companion.  "  His  Excellency  has  a  taste  for  tragics," 
groans  Casalbon  after  one  such  scene,  "  and  does  not 
spare  the  colours  in  his  speech.  A  man  could  not 
crush  a  murderer  with  rarer  language  than  he  has 
just  used  to  me  !  "  A  few  days  later,  these  scenes 
came  to  an  abrupt  termination,  for,  casting  caution 
to  the  winds,  Mora  escaped  his  friends  and  was 
away  hot-foot  for  Paris.  His  nun  sister  awaited 
him  at  Madrid,  but,  with  not  a  day's  break  of  the 
journey  for  all  her  pleading,  he  never  slackened  speed 
until  his  friends  at  the  Embassy  were  welcoming  the 
traveller  with  more  surprise  than  pleasure.  Absence 
had  certainly  abated  no  jot  of  his  flames,  and  he  and 
Julie  were  the  more  inseparable  by  reason  of  the 
bitter  days  now  passed. 

Few  spectacles  pall  like  the  affairs  of  others,  and 
these  pages  shall  not  be  burthened  with  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  renewed  loves  of  the  Marquis  and  his  lady. 
Twin  souls  in  imaginative  capacity  and  exaltation, 
their  ecstasies  no  doubt  justified  Guibert's  posthum- 
ous apostrophe  to  the  ill-fated  lover  :  "  Death  came 
in  the  flower  of  thy  prime,  but  in  those  few  years 
thou  hadst  gathered  all  the  flowers  which  Heaven 
accords  to  us  men  upon  this  earth."  Day  by  day 
they  passed  their  mornings  together ;  dinner  and 
supper  found  them  reunited  at  the  tables  of  compla- 
cent friends.  If  Mora  had  lent  himself  to  the  world's 
efforts,  these  days  would  have  crowned  his  social 
career.  Never  was  man  more  beset  in  the  literary 


282  JULIE    DE   LESPINASSE 

gatherings  which  he  consented  to  honour,  nor  was 
there  a  known  salon  whose  leader  did  not  aver  that 
he  had  graced  its  floor.  Even  Madame  du  Deffand 
consented  to  ignore  the  confessed  admirer  of  Julie, 
and  entertained  him  in  a  brilliant  company — Beau- 
vau,  Stainville,  the  Archbishop  of  Toulouse,  Count 
de  Creutz,  Caraccioli.  "It  did  not  pass  off  at  all 
badly,"  she  wrote  to  Walpole  next  morning. 

Pleasure,  social  admiration,  or  the  seductions  of 
gratified  vanity  were,  however,  powerless  to  woo 
the  young  Spaniard.  "  In  the  midst  of  the  dissipa- 
tions of  the  Court,"  all  the  fashion,  "courted  by  the 
most  entrancing  women,  he  had  but  one  business, 
one  desire — to  live  in  my  thoughts,  to  fill  my  life ! " 
Thus  Julie;  but  she  is  herself  no  whit  less  smitten, 
witness  her  conduct  in  keeping  her  room,  and  refus- 
ing herself  to  all  friends,  during  the  week  in  October 
when  Louis  XV.  commanded  her  lover's  presence 
at  Fontainebleau.  "  I  was  either  writing  or  reading 
a  letter,"  she  explained.  "  He  was  away  for  eleven 
days :  I  received  twenty-two  letters !  "  This  wanton- 
ness in  love-letters,  it  may  be  remarked,  is  a  charac- 
teristic of  the  times,  in  which  their  exchange  was  a 
veritable  rage.  "There  are  persons  here,"  writes 
Walpole,  then  in  Paris,  "  who  write  four  such  letters 
every  day.  I  have  heard  of  a  couple,  never  out 
of  each  other's  pockets,  who  were  reduced  to  such 
straits  for  need  of  the  outlet  that  our  gentleman  was 
fain  to  erect  a  barrier  in  his  opened  umbrella,  where- 
over,  or  perhaps  round  which,  he  cast  his  missives 
into  Her  Ladyship's  lap." 

Julie  would  have  tasted  heaven  in  these  days  but 


MORA'S    NEW    RELAPSE  283 

for  the  continual  cloud  on  her  horizon — Mora's 
health.  Seine  damp  and  social  wear  and  tear  were 
quick  to  consume  what  energy  he  had  stored  up  at 
Valencia,  and  only  a  few  months  were  gone  before 
his  old  troubles  again  showed  themselves,  slight  at 
first,  then  more  serious,  and  always  with  increasing 
frequency.  Naturally  careless,  and  subject  to  the 
illusions  of  all  in  like  case,  the  Marquis  ignored 
his  warnings  and  remained  obstinately  hopeful  with 
each  new  attack  surmounted.  Julie's  keener  sight 
constantly  brought  her  to  the  gates  of  despair. 
"  Life  does  not  contain  the  wherewithal  to  set 
against  my  suffering  since  Monday,"  she  tells  Suard. 
"  For  the  matter  of  that,  I  may  say  that  I  have  been 
upon  the  rack  these  three  months ;  yet  I  can  only 
love  him  the  better  for  it."  A  climax  came  early  in 
June,  when  her  lover  brought  up  blood  so  copiously 
that  he  was  in  serious  danger  for  three  whole  days. 
"  He  has  been  bled  thrice,"  Condorcet  wrote  to 
Turgot  on  June  7th,  "  and  has  now  taken  the  right 
turn.  But  he  did  not  deserve  this  good  fortune, 
and  the  whole  thing  is  terrible  for  his  friends." 
"  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  is  still  very  un- 
happy," he  wrote  again  to  Madame  Suard,  "and 
these  repeated  drains  on  his  poor  remaining  strength 
are  only  too  good  warrant  for  her  fears." 

Ill  as  he  certainly  was,  Mora  made  an  aston- 
ishing recovery  ;  but,  summer  being  come,  Doctor 
Lorry  prescribed  a  season  at  Bagneres,  the  warm 
springs  at  which  place  were  highly  reputed  for  all 
pulmonary  affections.  This  verdict  proved  a 
wrench,  but  it  was  nothing  to  the  troubles  that  now 


284  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

fell  upon  the  Fuentes  family.  The  Count's  means 
had  not  sufficed  to  meet  the  heavy  demands  of  the 
life  at  Paris  and  Versailles  and  the  huge  train  held 
requisite  for  his  ambassadorial  rank,  and  his  fortune 
was  seriously  undermined.  Yet,  as  if  these  twin 
anxieties  were  insufficient,  he  was  now  called  to  face 
the  serious  decline  in  his  wife's  health.  :She  had 
ailed  these  many  years,  but  had  grown  less  and  less 
strong,  until  it  seemed  certain  that  she  was  in  a 
decline.  All  these  troubles  harassed  the  Ambas- 
sador so  much  that  he  declared  himself  disgusted 
with  Paris  for  good  and  all.  "His  hypochondria 
increases  daily,  and  certainly  little  of  what  he  has  to 
face  can  seem  pleasing  to  any  man's  eyes."  Azara, 
the  writer  of  these  lines,  adds  a  few  days  later,  "  He 
has  obtained  temporary  leave  of  absence  ;  "  but  the 
Count's  departure  was  final,  in  point  of  fact,  for  he 
was  succeeded  by  Count  d'Aranda,  without  having 
returned  to  present  his  letters  of  recall.  On  leaving 
Paris,  he  ordered  his  son  to  return  to  his  mother  at 
Madrid  so  soon  as  his  course  at  Bagneres  should 
be  completed. 

Julie's  troubles  at  the  receipt  of  this  news  defied 
her  powers  of  self-containment.  "  Monsieur  de 
Mora,"  she  tells  Condorcet,  "was  here  last  after- 
noon. He  seemed  very  well,  but  the  thought  of 
three  hundred  leagues  between  us,  and  he  with  a 
mortal  sickness,  is  indeed  terrifying.  Is  it  not 
fearful — this  trouble  which  one  affection  can  bring 
upon  our  lives?  Yet,  such  is  the  power  of  senti- 
ment that  we  would  never  agree  to  escape  love  I " 
Mora  was  little  less  downcast  as  the  time  of  depar- 


HIS    PROMISES  285 

ture  approached,  but  his  younger  temperament  was 
more  elastic,  and  he  declined  to  meet  tragedy  half- 
way. Thus,  he  is  sure  that  "  my  health  is  perfectly 
restored,  and  I  am  just  where  I  was  before  this 
last  upset.  I  incline  to  think  that  my  present 
treatment  shows  better  results  than  the  former  one, 
and  I  look  to  more  permanent  results."  Another 
letter  is  in  less  happy  strain  :  "  The  name  of  the 
Pyrenees,  in  your  letter,  makes  me  tremble.  Cruel 
September  looms  too  near."  Yet,  hope  is  quick  to 
recur :  "  I  could  never  consent  to  leave  you  if  my 
return  were  not  assured.  And  then  my  vows  will  be 
complete,  and  all  our  hopes  fulfilled" 

Mora's  last  sentence  refers  to  the  certitude  that 
he  felt  of  being  able  to  force  the  consent  of  his 
family  when  once  he  reached  Madrid,  and  so  to 
return  to  Paris  triumphant,  and  openly  affianced  to 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse.  This  promise  re- 
mained with  her  as  the  one  bright  star  in  the  dark- 
ness of  her  coming  days,  and  is  referred  to  in  an 
early  stage  of  her  correspondence  with  Guibert. 
"  You  really  ask  strange  questions  :  '  Has  he  a  better 
reason  than  I  for  his  absence  f '  Surely  he  has 
many,  and  one  in  particular  so  absolute  and  of  such 
a  kind  that  very  life  should  not  acquit  me  of  its 
success.  Every  circumstance  and  event,  and  all 
reasons  physical  and  moral,  array  themselves  against 
me  ;  but  this  one  reason  is  so  strong  that  I  cannot 
doubt  he  will  return — no,  not  for  a  moment." 

Gossip  was  quick  to  carry  this  rumour.  Count 
d'Albon  heard  it  from  the  depths  of  his  estate  at 
Forez,  and  forthwith  fearing  lest  his  sister  should 


286  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

at  last  claim  her  mother's  name  and  a  share  in  the 
family  heritage,  he  stated  a  case  for  a  lawyer,  whose 
reply  is  preserved  among  the  archives  of  Avauges. 
He  need  not  have  feared,  for,  "always  and  entirely 
full  of  a  sentiment  which  concerned  herself  alone," 
Julie  had  no  thoughts  to  spare  for  mere  name  or 
money.  This  opinion  of  Morellet  is  borne  out  by 
Julie's  cry  on  her  beloved's  death:  "No  single 
worldly  thought  "  has  touched  her  passion  in  all  the 
past  six  years.  "  What  could  he  have  thought  of 
me  if  he  had  once  seen  me  as  so  many  women  are  ? 
What  proof  could  have  shown  him  the  purity  of  my 
sentiments  then  ?  Whether  some  delicacy  attaches 
me  to  my  poverty,  or  that  I  have  never  thought 
upon  the  future,  I  protest  that  not  so  much  as  once 
have  I  toyed  with  the  hope  of  seeing  my  fortunes 
change." 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  felt  as  though  the 
heart  were  reft  from  her  breast  when  Mora's  carriage 
finally  swept  him  away  to  Bagneres  on  August  7, 
1772.  "All  that  I  am  is  centred  upon  this  one 
thing.  Nature  is  without  life  to  me,  excepting  only 
that  one  object  which  moves  my  being  and  fills  each 
moment  of  my  existence."  This  passionate  Julie 
was,  surely,  altogether  sincere ;  yet,  seeing  herself 
as  she  would  be  less  than  a  year  later,  another 
phrase  once  dropped  by  her  must  no  less  certainly 
have  come  into  her  mind  :  "  Nature's  greatest  spaces 
are  marked  by  no  milestones.  True  distance,  the 
separations  which  terrify — these  lie  in  the  soul's 
forgetfulness.  Death  is  their  own  cousin,  but  death 
is  the  lesser  evil,  for  these  are  felt — ah  !  how  long  ?  " 


CHAPTER    XI 

Fetf  at  Moulin-Joli — Count  Guibert — His  high  repute  at  this  time — Popularity 
with  women — Madame  de  Montsauge — Guibert  impresses  Julie — Her 
long  illusion  on  the  nature  of  his  feelings  for  her — His  German  tour — 
Increasing  passion  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Her  remorse  on 
account  of  Mora — Bad  news  from  the  latter — Correspondence  between 
d'Alembert  and  the  Duke  of  Villa  Hermosa— Cruel  agitation  of  Julie — 
She  confesses  her  love  to  Guibert — His  response — Growing  jealousy  on 
account  of  Madame  de  Montsauge — Illness  of  Guibert — Julie's  anxiety — 
Guibert  at  last  announces  his  return. 

AMONG  houses  most  frequented  by  social  Paris  in 
the  year  1772  was  that  of  Watelet,  financier,  farmer- 
general,  author,  engraver,  and  member  of  both  the 
Academic  Fran9aise  and  the  Academic  des  Beaux- 
Arts.  This  accomplished  man,  of  wide  intelligence 
and  cultivated  tastes,  had  established  himself  just 
outside  the  city,  near  the  left  bank  of  the  Seine, 
and  not  far  from  the  Bezons  ferry,  in  a  rural  abode 
which,  on  account  of  its  novelty,  provoked  general 
curiosity  and  admiration.  The  "  return  to  nature" 
was  at  its  height.  Having  begun  with  literature,  it 
now  extended  itself  to  all  the  arts,  and  especially  to 
that  of  decorative  gardening.  The  straight  paths, 
square  garden-beds  and  hedges  of  the  old  French 
parks,  were  beginning  to  give  way  to  less  geometric 
designs  and  more  fanciful  shapes.  In  this  the 
financier  Boutin,  leader  of  the  movement,  overshot 
the  mark,  for  his  gardens  were  simply  an  accumu- 
lation of  groves,  meadows,  rocks,  waterfalls,  and 

round-topped  hills,  resembling,  Walpole  says,  "vege- 
287 


288  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

table  puddings"  and  winding  rivers  "easily  navi- 
gable in  the  nut-shell  season."  "  There  is  something 
so  sociable,"  continues  this  eternal  scoffer,  "  in  being 
able  to  shake  hands  across  a  river  or  from  two 
mountain  peaks!  It  is  a  conception  that  only  one 
nation  is  sufficiently  amiable  to  imagine." 

Watelet  had  avoided  this  excess,  and  his  domain 
of  Moulin-Joli  in  no  way  resembled  a  "sample- 
box."  Its  two  islands  were  connected  by  a  bridge 
of  boats  bordered  with  boxes  of  flowers,  and  were 
covered  with  orchards,  flowering  shrubs,  and  wide- 
spreading  trees — Italian  poplars,  elms,  and  weeping- 
willows — whose  drooping  branches  formed  natural 
arches  "under  which,"  writes  Madame  Lebrun,  "to 
rest  and  dream  with  delight."  Mingled  with  the 
rarer  plants,  wild  flowers  and  weeds  grew  and 
multiplied  at  will,  while,  in  different  directions, 
vistas  framed  in  wide-arched  avenues  led  down 
the  eye  to  some  lovely  view  of  chateau,  village, 
church  spire,  or  convent. 

The  creator  of  this  enchanting  Elysium  lived 
here  in  perfect  and  harmonious  unity  with  her  whom 
he  had  associated  with  his  life,  Marguerite  Lecomte, 
who,  thirty  years  earlier,  had  escaped  from  her  hus- 
band's house  to  follow  him.  This  flight  had  taken 
place  without  noise  or  scandal,  and  the  husband 
had  been  the  first  to  show  calm  indulgence,  abstain- 
ing from  all  complaint  and  reproach,  and  occupying 
his  leisure,  by  way  of  diverting  himself,  in  making 
"  vinegar  and  mustard,"  and  in  assiduously  frequent- 
ing the  house  of  his  successor.  The  world  had. 
little  by  little,  done  the  same,  and  spoke  only  with 


MOULIN-JOLI  289 

touching  respect  of  this  sexagenarian  couple,  a 
model  "faux-mdnage"  and  very  Philemon  and 
Baucis  of  extra-conjugal  conjugality.  The  best 
society,  the  most  exclusive  women,  the  digni- 
taries of  the  Church,  all  paraded  their  intimacy 
with  "la  meuniere  de  Moulin- Jo  li"  and  crowded 
her  drawing-room.  At  an  entertainment  given  in 
October  1773,  Watelet's  mistress  was  placed  at 
table  between  the  Archbishop  of  Bourges  and 
Mademoiselle  de  Cosse  Brissac,  daughter  of  the 
duchess  of  that  name.  After  this  dinner,  the  Due 
de  Nivernais  sang  couplets  which  treated  all  the 
guests,  including  the  Archbishop,  with  the  greatest 
familiarity  ;  but  the  author  reserved  all  the  respect 
of  which  he  was  capable  for  Marguerite  Lecomte. 
Every  personage  of  their  time,  in  fact,  evinced  the 
greatest  cordiality  towards  the  host  and  hostess  of 
the  "Enchanted  Isle,"  the  one  discordant  note  in 
this  concert  being  the  austere  disapproval  of  Madame 
de  Genlis,  governess  to  the  children  of  the  Duke  of 
Orleans — and  presumptive  mother  of  her  pupils. 

D'Alembert  was  a  constant  guest  at  this  hospit- 
able house,  and  a  life-long  friend  of  its  owner. 
"  For  thirty  years,"  writes  Watelet  to  Pere  Paci- 
audi,  "  we  have  either  seen  each  other  or  exchanged 
some  mark  of  friendship  every  day."  Relations  were 
equally  cordial  with  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse, 
and  there  was  never  a  luncheon,  supper,  or  recep- 
tion of  any  kind  at  Moulin-Joli  to  which  she 
was  not  invited  among  the  first,  and  especially 
welcomed.  She  was  present,  among  other  occasions, 
at  an  affair  which  took  place  on  the  2ist  of  June, 

T 


290  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

on  a  beautiful  afternoon  of  this  first  summer  month. 
Mora  was  at  last  convalescent  after  a  terrible  attack. 
His  friend,  freed  from  her  long  anguish  of  anxiety, 
began  again  to  take  an  interest  in  life,  and  felt  the 
need  of  shaking  off  for  a  moment  the  remembrance 
of  those  terrible  hours.  Among  the  many  guests 
on  this  occasion  was  a  person  just  coming  into 
public  notice,  Jacques  Antoine  Hippolyte,  Count 
de  Guibert,  colonel  in  the  army,  and  author  of  a 
successful  book  of  which  mention  must  presently 
be  made.  A  phrase  in  "  1'Eloge  d'Eliza"  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  this  may  not  have  been  a  first 
meeting,  but  if  Guibert  and  Mademoiselle  de  Les- 
pinasse  had  already  met  in  Paris,  they  had  not 
hitherto  found  opportunities  to  know  each  other 
in  any  real  sense.  At  Moulin-Joli,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  customary  ease  of  a  country  gathering, 
with  its  free  invitations  to  wander  through  the 
gardens,  offered  an  opportunity  for  conversation  of 
which  they  readily  availed  themselves.  It  is  easy 
to  imagine  them  walking  side  by  side  in  the  beauti- 
ful shaded  avenues  which  led  to  the  Seine,  or  seated 
in  the  poetic  shade  of  a  weeping-willow,  and  there, 
among  these  charming  surroundings,  abandoning 
themselves  simply  and  without  mistrust  to  the 
instinctive  sympathy  which  dawns  when  two  hearts 
discover  mutual  tastes,  feelings,  and  ideas. 

There  was  certainly  no  thought  of  sentiment  in 
this  first  meeting,  nor,  on  Julie's  part  at  any  rate, 
any  desire  for,  or  anticipation  of,  closer  friendship. 
11 1  was  very  far,"  she  writes  to  Guibert  in  the 
following  year,  "  from  needing  to  form  a  new  tie ; 


GUIBERT  291 

my  life  and  my  heart  were  both  too  full  to  permit 
of  my  desiring  a  fresh  interest."  Nevertheless,  he 
undoubtedly  made  a  deep  impression  upon  her. 
Three  days  after  the  meeting  at  Moulin-Joli  she 
writes  to  Condorcet :  "I  have  met  Monsieur  de 
Guibert,  who  pleases  me  extremely ;  every  word 
that  he  utters  shows  depth  of  character,  and  a  strong 
and  exalted  nature.  He  is  like  no  one  else."  She 
immediately  procured  his  book,  not  then  published 
in  France,  and  read  it  with  the  greatest  appreciation  ; 
and  when  her  note  of  congratulation  was  answered 
by  the  author  in  person,  a  second  conversation 
strengthened  the  effect  of  the  first.  She  again  con- 
fided in  Condorcet :  "  Monsieur  de  Guibert  has  been 
here.  He  continues  to  please  me  infinitely."  It 
was  thus  for  good  reason  that  Julie  afterwards  dated 
the  event  which  was  to  change  her  whole  existence, 
and  bring  "misery  to  her  life,"  from  "the  day  at 
Moulin-Joli."  Nor  does  she  by  this  diminish  her 
right  to  deny  premeditation,  and  to  accuse  Fate 
alone :  "  Are  we  free  agents  ?  Can  that  which  is 
be  other  than  it  is  ?  " 

At  the  date  of  this  entry  into  Julie's  life,  Guibert 
was  barely  twenty-nine  years  old,  but  had  already 
achieved  great  distinction.  Twelve  years  in  the 
army  had  gained  him  a  brilliant  record  in  the 
Seven  Years'  War  and  in  the  Corsican  campaign. 
Finally,  he  was  author  of  a  book,  "  A  Comprehensive 
Study  of  Tactics,"  the  appearance  of  which  at  about 
this  time  produced  an  extraordinary  sensation 
throughout  all  Europe.  The  volume — the  real 
foundation  of  his  fame — was  divided  into  two 


292  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

parts,  the  second  of  which  took  the  form  of  a 
didactic  treatise  upon  the  several  European  sys- 
tems, and  indicated  the  author's  idea  of  essential 
reforms  in  tactics  and  strategy.  Of  this  technical 
section  we  need  only  say  that  it  overthrew  all  the 
old  ideas,  and  substituted  for  them  those  since  pre- 
valent. Napoleon  carried  a  copy  of  it,  annotated 
by  his  own  hand,  through  all  his  first  campaigns. 
The  first  part,  however,  excited  yet  more  general 
enthusiasm  by  its  brilliant  and  fiery  eloquence.  In 
this,  under  the  title  of  "A  Preliminary  Discourse,"  the 
young  author  audaciously  attacked  all  the  existing 
monarchies,  that  of  his  own  country  in  particular, 
vehemently  denounced  absolutism,  set  out  his  own 
opinion  of  the  basis  upon  which  the  old  realm  of 
France  should  be  remodelled,  and  formulated, 
twenty  years  before  the  Revolution,  the  very  doc- 
trines which  were  the  Evangel  of  the  reformers 
of  1789. 

No  words  can  describe  the  effect  produced  upon 
public  opinion  by  this  language  then  so  new,  and 
by  the  sincere  patriotism  that  rang  through  these 
exalted  pages,  so  rich  in  their  quick  alternation 
between  dreams  and  ideas  of  unquestioned  sound- 
ness. It  evoked  nothing  but  praise  ;  for  while  the 
army  gloried  in  the  success  of  an  officer,  the  En- 
cyclopaedists exulted  in  a  brilliant  addition  to  their 
ranks,  and  Voltaire  declared  the  "  Tactique  "  a  work 
of  genius,  the  "  Court  and  the  fashionable  world," 
says  La  Harpe,  "  flattered  themselves  upon  op- 
posing a  colonel  to  the  whole  literary  world."  An 
imprudent  critic  was  immediately  crushed  by  a 


HIS   GREAT    REPUTATION         293 

wit's  retort :  "  Those  who  look  for  spots  in  the  sun 
lose  their  sight." 

Not  unnaturally,  the  colonel's  most  ardent  ad- 
mirers were  often  women,  and  the  "Essay  on 
Tactics "  had  its  place  on  every  tea-table  and  in 
every  boudoir.  A  distinguished  salon  went  even 
further  when  the  interesting  subject  which  it  dis- 
cussed during  an  entire  evening  was  simply,  "  Is 
the  mother,  the  sister,  or  the  mistress  of  Monsieur 
de  Guibert  to  be  most  envied  ?  " 

Public  infatuation  of  the  kind  could  not  fail 
promptly  to  transfer  itself  from  the  work  to  the 
author.  Many  a  great  man  and  hero  of  the  hour 
had  been  raised  to  mushroom  renown  in  the  excit- 
able and  overheated  atmosphere  of  Parisian  society 
during  the  last  few  years.  The  fame  of  the  best  of 
them  never  so  much  as  distantly  approached  the 
surprising  eminence  attained  in  the  space  of  a  day, 
and  long  enjoyed,  by  Guibert.  "He  leaps  to  glory 
by  all  the  roads,"  writes  the  great  Frederick,  and 
the  patriarch  of  Ferney  adds :  "  I  do  not  know 
whether  he  will  be  a  Corneille  or  a  Turenne,  but 
to  me  he  seems  born  to  greatness,  no  matter  what 
the  sphere  of  his  choice."  Julie  de  Lespinasse  but 
echoes  the  general  opinion  when  she  says  to  him  : 
"  There  are  names  made  for  history :  yours  will 
always  excite  admiration."  No  lesser  word  than 
genius  was  ever  used  to  characterise  him ;  no  one 
ever  doubted  that  here  was  the  future  glory  of  his 
country  and  the  instrument  of  her  regeneration. 
"He  stands  at  the  head  of  an  intellectual  group, 
for  whom  he  is  an  oracle  ;  his  virtues  and  his  ability 


294  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

are  so  highly  thought  of  by  his  disciples  and  friends, 
that  there  are  those  among  them  who  rejoice  to  be 
born  of  his  time,  as  I  know  not  which  philosopher 
rejoiced  that  he  was  born  in  the  time  of  Socrates." 
Buonaparte,  just  returned  from  Egypt,  was  hardly 
the  object  of  greater  hopes  to  the  educated  world  of 
Paris  than  was  Count  de  Guibert  at  the  time  of  his 
first  acquaintance  with  Julie  de  Lespinasse. 

Judged  across  the  intervening  years,  such  en- 
thusiasm seems  rather  inexplicable,  for  it  was  of 
the  kind  which  passes  with,  as  it  originates  in,  the 
personality  of  a  man.  It  was  not  a  product  of 
physical  perfection ;  Julie  herself  remains  calm  on 
this  point :  "  His  face  is  fine  without  being  dis- 
tinguished ;  his  features  are  regular,  but  rather  lack- 
ing in  expression,  and  his  general  air  is  subdued  and 
gentle.  He  has  an  easy  carriage,  and  the  free  and 
natural  laugh  of  early  youth."  Guibert's  portraits 
convey  an  impression  of  force  and  energy  rather 
than  of  charm  and  grace.  They  depict  a  man  with 
large  brow  framed  in  thick,  tight-curling  hair  ;  deep- 
set  eyes,  a  rather  heavy  jaw,  and  a  large  mouth  with 
full  lips.  The  head  is  carried  very  erect  upon  a 
powerful  neck.  He  was  somewhat  short  in  stature, 
but  his  bearing  was  noble  and  free,  "with  a  certain 
adroitness  and  assurance  of  manner  " — a  man  good- 
looking,  in  fact,  and  at  all  points,  but  not  one  to 
attract  particular  attention  or  in  any  way  suggest 
the  hero  of  romance.  The  secret  of  his  empire  over 
contemporary  opinion  lay,  indeed,  in  that  which  is 
essentially  fugitive — an  almost  miraculous  gift  of 
eloquence.  He  needed  but  to  open  his  lips  and  an 


HIS    PERSONAL   CHARM  295 

audience  was  bewitched.  His  voice,  exquisitely 
modulated,  sweet  and  winning,  stirred  the  hearts  of 
listeners  even  before  their  minds  succumbed  to 
words  which  flowed  forth  like  a  deep  -  sounding 
stream,  rich  in  imagery,  fresh,  strikingly  expressive, 
full  of  poetic  comparisons,  expressed,  one  and  all, 
with  the  utmost  heat  and  fire,  but  also  with  extreme 
clearness.  A  mysterious  fire  seemed  at  such  times 
to  escape  from  the  depths  of  his  being  and  to  illu- 
minate the  furthest  recesses  of  his  thought.  "  While 
he  spoke  with  one,"  wrote  Madame  de  Stael,  "his 
mind  was  yours.  His  conversation  was  the  most 
varied,  the  most  animated,  and  the  richest  that  ever 
I  knew.  In  public  or  in  private,  in  whatever  frame 
of  mind  either  he  or  you  might  be,  his  intellect  was 
always  at  work,  and  he  never  failed  to  communicate 
his  thought."  This  judgment  of  an  enthusiast  is 
seconded  by  that  of  Madame  Necker,  a  woman  as 
calm  and  as  moderate  as  her  daughter  was  the 
reverse :  "  More  gifted  in  his  own  way  than  the 
most  gifted,  no  one  before  him  had  possessed  such 
marvellous  and  individual  talent.  His  genius  was 
knit  with  enthusiasm,  and  enthusiasm  can  alone 
describe  him  who,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  was  ever 
able  to  make  all  things  seem  in  some  way  personally 
connected  with  himself  by  the  sheer  power  of  his  own 
sympathy,  thought,  or  action."  On  the  morrow  of 
hearing  Guibert  read  one  of  his  own  works,  this 
critic  wrote  to  Grimm:  "Our  young  man  reads  a 
whole  play  alone  better  than  the  best  company  of 
actors  could  do  it,  and  women  are  borne  dead  or 
dying  from  his  performance." 


296  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

A  man  who  joined  to  this  power  of  oratory  a 
peerless  memory  of  which  many  surprising  feats 
are  quoted,  a  tireless  activity,  a  capacity  for  work 
which  enabled  him  to  accomplish  the  most  difficult 
and  varied  tasks,  yet  never  curtail  his  social  diver- 
sions, would  at  all  times  be  an  Admirable  Crichton. 
Guibert  was  this  to  his  contemporaries,  particularly 
to  such  as  were  of  the  other  sex.  A  professional 
Don  Juan,  indeed — and  Guibert  was  not  this — could 
hardly  have  surpassed  the  tale  of  his  conquests,  yet 
he  troubled  himself  about  them  not  a  jot.  "The 
levity,  even  hardness,  with  which  he  treats  women," 
Julie  once  complained,  "comes  from  the  small  con- 
sideration in  which  he  holds  them.  ...  He  thinks 
them  flirtatious,  vain,  weak,  false,  and  frivolous. 
Those  whom  he  judges  most  favourably  he  believes 
romantic,  and  though  obliged  to  recognise  good 
qualities  in  some,  he  does  not  on  that  account  value 
them  more  highly,  but  holds  that  they  have  fewer 
vices  rather  than  more  virtues."  Again  she  says : 
"  He  takes  them  for  diversion  and  distraction,  and 
leaves  them  for  the  same  reasons ;  nor  does  he  con- 
sider their  feelings  sufficiently  to  feel  it  necessary  to 
spare  them."  This  description  is  not  exaggerated, 
yet,  so  illogical  is  the  sex,  the  less  he  cared  for  his 
adorers,  the  more  ardently  did  they  cling  to  him. 
He  received  as  a  fit  tribute,  so  to  speak,  the  love 
that  he  excited  in  all  directions,  and  fluttered  from 
one  to  another  as  fancy  dictated.  His  own  heart 
was  never  once  involved,  for  in  this  dawn  of  his  life 
dreams  of  ambition  and  glory  left  no  room  for  senti- 
mental reveries,  and,  as  Madame  de  Stae'l  says,  not 


MADAME    DE    MONTSAUGE        297 

without  malice,  "  He  was  interested  in  his  own 
thought,  and  perhaps  in  himself,  to  the  exclusion  of 
others." 

These  easy  successes  and  short-lived  affairs 
were,  however,  no  obstacle  to  a  serious  and,  so  to 
speak,  acknowledged  connection.  Julie's  first  picture 
of  him  says  :  "  Monsieur  de  Guibert  is  really  less 
lovable  than  he  is  worthy  of  being  loved,  at  any 
rate  by  his  friends  and  his  mistress,  for  it  is  impos- 
sible that  he  should  not  have  one."  She  was  the 
more  sure  of  this  fact  since,  as  will  appear,  he 
had  already  confided  to  her  the  full  story  of  a  tie, 
which,  frail  as  it  was,  had  all  the  strength  and  re- 
sistance to  change  that  are  the  issue  of  long  habit. 
Guibert's  mistress,  Jeanne  Thiroux  de  Montsauge, 
now  past  her  thirtieth  year,  had  long  nourished 
for  him  a  calm,  deep,  and  real  affection.  She  was 
a  daughter  of  Bouret,  the  farmer-general — a  man 
long  famous  for  his  wild  prodigality  and  ostentation, 
and  finally  for  his  complete  ruin  and  tragic  end.  She 
was  a  clear-sighted,  prudent,  and  reasonable  person, 
a  little  commonplace,  perhaps,  but  capable  of  true 
devotion,  and,  as  Guibert  writes,  made  for  "  a  sweet 
and  gentle  friendship  "  rather  than  for  great  passions 
and  frenzied  raptures.  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse 
is  very  scornful  of  this  moderation.  "  I  think  he 
has  made  a  great  mistake,"  she  writes.  "  He  has 
fallen  to  one  who  arrests  his  progress,  while  worthy 
of  a  Madame  de  Moussetiere."1  Guibert  himself 
echoes  this  complaint  with  signal  injustice,  for  few 

1  The  notorious  heroine  of  a  contemporary  intrigue  which  cul- 
minated in  the  death  of  herself  and  her  lover. 


298  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

women,  however  loving,  would  bear,  without  com- 
plaint or  apparent  jealousy,  the  coldness,  fickleness, 
and  infidelity  which  were  her  reward  at  his  hands. 
On  Mora's  departure'  from  Paris,  a  continuous  inter- 
course was  established  between  Julie  de  Lespinasse 
and  Count  de  Guibert.  Their  letters  show  us  how 
unconsciously  they  drifted  into  this  dangerous  inti- 
macy. Guibert,  after  several  years  of  a  connection 
which  did  not,  perhaps,  sufficiently  flatter  his  vanity, 
was  now  at  the  point  where  a  man,  tied  by  habit 
alone,  is  secretly  chafing  to  escape.  He  did  not 
scruple  to  tell  Julie  this,  and  a  year  later  we  find  her 
writing:  "You  have  not  forgotten  what  you  told 
me  twenty  times  last  year?  You  had  then  every 
intention  of  taking  a  decided  course  and  of  breaking 
definitely  with  her.  I  remember  having  opposed 
that  resolution,  and  at  that  time,  as  you  know,  I 
wanted  nothing  for  myself."  "  You  assured  me  that 
you  no  longer  loved  this  woman,"  she  wrote  a  little 
later,  "  and  that  your  heart  was  so  free  of  any  real 
feeling  that  your  earnest  wish  was  for  marriage." 
Yet,  though  thus  heartless,  Guibert  could  not  escape 
our  mortal  need,  whereby  we  would  cloak  our  baser 
feelings  with  an  air  of  nobility.  His  satiety  was  to 
be  called  the  lassitude  of  a  heart  discouraged  by  the 
essentially  common  nature  of  a  companion  whom 
his  utmost  efforts  could  not  raise  to  his  own  level. 
"  After  all,"  he  remarks,  "  I  cannot  complain.  Could 
I  expect  her  to  resemble  me  ?  to  resemble  you  ?  " 
He  continued  to  develop  this  theme  with  that 
warmth  of  expression  which  lent  such  power  to  his 
words,  until  Julie  began,  in  good  faith,  to  pity  him 


GUIBERT   CHARMS   JULIE         299 

as  the  victim  of  a  terrible  mistake  and  to  weep  over 
this  so  misunderstood  nature :  "Only  the  unfortunate 
are  worthy  of  friends  ;  if  your  soul  had  not  suffered, 
it  could  never  have  known  mine." 

This  fictitious  analogy  of  two  hearts  equally 
wounded,  equally  sorrowing,  fostered  a  rapid  in- 
timacy. The  absence  of  the  Marquis  de  Mora,  and 
the  bad  news  received  from  him,  left  Julie  without 
energy  and  almost  without  hope.  Mental  distrac- 
tions or  social  pleasures  could  no  longer  beguile  or 
assuage  her  grief.  She  thought  that  she  found 
some  alleviation  of  her  pain  in  the  intelligent  sym- 
pathy of  a  kindred  soul,  passionate  like  her  own,  and 
equally  unhappy  ;  and  while  she  sought  consolation 
for  Mora's  sad  case,  the  consoler  gradually  and 
insensibly  enmeshed  her  in  his  charm.  "You 
alone,"  she  writes,  "have  perhaps  won  me  a  few 
instants  of  oblivion  from  my  sorrow,  and  this  bless- 
ing of  a  moment  has  for  ever  attached  me  to  you. 
.  .  .  My  soul  had  no  need  of  loving.  It  was  filled 
by  feelings  of  the  utmost  tenderness.  The  sadness 
which  walks  with  such  feeling  drew  me  to  you. 
You  should  only  have  pleased  me,  and  you  have 
touched  me."  She  ingenuously  discloses  the  depths 
of  her  heart  in  these  charming  and  graceful  words  : 
"  I  had  suffered  so  much !  My  heart  and  my  soul 
were  exhausted  by  too  long  sorrow.  But  I  saw 
you ;  you  brought  new  life  and  brightness  to  my 
soul ;  and  now  I  know  not  which  yields  higher 
pleasures — the  thought  of  my  joy,  or  that  I  enjoy  it 
through  you."  No  presentiment  warned  her  of 
approaching  danger.  Confident  in  her  tenderness 


300  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

and  affection  for  her  absent  lover,  she  had  no  reason 
to  mistrust  herself:  "Guarded  as  I  was  by  affection 
and  unhappiness,  and  by  the  inestimable  blessing 
of  being  loved  by  a  perfect  nature,  how  should  I 
fear  ?  how  foresee  danger  ?  And  you  !  To  a  soul 
thus  filled,  and  thus  surrounded,  you  brought  the 
fire  of  passion,  the  misery  of  remorse."  Later,  in  a 
species  of  self-examination,  she  repeats  the  same 
thing :  "I  could  not  have  explained  my  own 
thoughts.  I  alternated  between  the  uneasiness 
of  nascent  passion  and  the  too  necessary  and 
flattering  illusion  of  having  inspired  tenderness 
equal  to  my  own."  She  is  disturbed  only  by  fear 
lest  this  growing  friendship  should  not  always 
remain  peaceful  and  helpful,  lest  her  own  nervous 
temperament  may  not  presently  cause  trouble  and 
dissension  between  them.  "  I  have  told  you  that 
our  friendship  cannot  be  like  that  of  Montaigne  and 
La  Boetie — calm  natures,  fitted  to  receive  gentle  and 
natural  impressions.  But  we  are  two  sick  people. 
Yet,  there  is  between  us  this  difference,"  she  adds : 
"  you  are  a  strong  and  reasonable  invalid,  who  con- 
trives to  enjoy  perpetual  good  health ;  I  am  a  victim 
of  mortal  sickness — such  sickness  as  poisons  what 
should  relieve  it,  and  out  of  each  new  remedy  makes 
to  itself  new  torments." 

These  last  lines,  in  which  we  distinguish  a  new 
note,  soon  to  become  more  accentuated,  mark  a 
stage  in  this  story  which  must  not  pass  unnoted. 
From  this  moment,  in  fact,  and  in  spite  of  her 
enraptured  illusions,  Julie  has  by  glimpses  vague 
intuitions  of  Guibert's  real  nature,  and  a  presen- 


HER    HOPES    AND    FEARS         301 

timent  of  what  she  is  to  suffer  from  this  heart  "  more 
ardent  than  tender,"  having  the  flame  of  passion 
without  its  warmth,  and  too  occupied  with  "glory" 
really  to  yield  to  love.  Thus  she  comes  to  the  day 
of  this  melancholy  irony  :  "  Something,  I  know  not 
what,  warns  me  that  I  might  say  of  our  friendship 
what  Count  d'Argenson  said  on  first  seeing  his  niece, 
Mademoiselle  de  Berville :  '  Ah !  here's  a  pretty 
Miss !  We  must  hope  for  a  great  deal  of  trouble 
with  her."'  And  later,  yet  more  clearly  :  "  Unless  I 
am  much  mistaken,  you  are  made  to  be  the  joy  of  a 
shallow  soul  and  the  despair  of  a  sensitive  one.  .  .  . 
Pity  on  any  woman  of  feeling  who  depends  upon 
your  love !  Her  life  would  be  consumed  in  fears 
and  in  regret." 

These  passages  are  no  more,  however,  than  a 
reflection  of  passing  moods.  Guibert  need  but 
protest,  evince  the  least  genuine  interest,  and  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  recovers  her  lost  faith  in 
him,  and  is  charmed  anew :  "  If  I  were  young, 
pretty,  and  charming,  I  should  distrust  your  atten- 
tions ;  but  as  I  am  none  of  these  things,  and  am 
indeed  their  exact  opposite,  I  find  in  them  a  kind- 
ness and  an  honesty  which  have  endeared  you  for 
ever  to  my  heart.  You  have  filled  it  with  gratitude 
and  esteem,  and  with  all  the  feelings  necessary  to 
intimacy  and  mutual  confidence.  .  .  .  You  wish  me 
peacefully  to  enjoy  the  friendship  which  you  offer 
me,  and  the  reality  of  which  you  prove  to  me  with 
equal  sweetness  and  amiability.  Yes,  I  accept  it — 
I  cherish  it ;  it  shall  console  me ;  and  to  enjoy  your 
society  at  any  time  shall  be  my  chief  desire,  and 


302  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

that  whereunto  I  most  do  yearn."  Thus  the  first 
stage  passes,  while  Julie,  alternating  between  doubts 
and  hopes,  joy  and  sadness,  is  constantly  blown  by 
contrary  winds,  and,  divining  in  her  heart  the  yet 
distant  reefs  which  lie  across  her  path,  can  yet  find 
no  strength  to  avoid  them. 

To  dispel  the  mists  which  clouded  her  will, 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  required  the  test  of 
some  new  trial.  She  found  it  in  a  brief  break  in 
their  growing  intimacy.  At  a  time  when  the  taste 
for  travel  was  little  prevalent  in  France,  Guibert 
from  his  earliest  youth  astonished  contemporary 
society  by  his  ardour  for  those  long  journeys  which 
appeal  so  strongly  to  curious  souls  that  crave  new 
sensations,  and  which  are  also,  as  Julie  reproach- 
fully suggests,  proof  of  a  restless  nature  impatient 
of  repose.  "  Motion  is  ever  more  necessary  to  you 
than  action.  This  phrase  sounds  subtle,  but  think 
it  over,  and  you  will  see  that  it  is  true."  In  May 
1773,  the  Count  was  suddenly  seized  with  the  desire 
to  travel  through  Austria,  Prussia,  and  the  Rhine 
country  ;  to  visit  the  battlefields  of  the  Seven  Years' 
War,  and  to  study  the  military  organisation  of  Ger- 
many under  Frederick.  Julie  had,  as  yet,  no  right 
to  combat  this  fancy  ;  she  therefore  resigned  herself, 
demanding  only  that  he  should  write  frequent  letters 
as  he  journeyed.  Yet,  his  promise  given,  she  has 
scruples  upon  the  matter:  "See  whether  I  am  not 
generous !  I  give  you  back  your  word  if  the  pledg- 
ing it  has  caused  you  one  regret.  .  .  .  Confess, 
then ! — I  promise  that  I  will  not  be  hurt.  Vanity 
alone  stickles  for  such  a  point,  and  of  vanity  I  have 


HER    DOUBTS  303 

none.  I  am  simply  a  good  creature,  very  stupid 
and  very  natural,  who  cares  more  for  the  pleasure 
of  those  whom  she  loves  than  for  anything  more 
personal  to  herself.  .  .  .  Do  as  you  please,  and 
write  to  me  a  little,  much,  or  not  at  all." 

Guibert's  departure  was  set  for  May  iQth,  a 
Wednesday,  but  on  the  following  day  Julie  learned 
that  Guibert  had  been  seen  in  Paris :  "  I  went 
myself  to  find  out  if  you  were  ill,  and — this  will  seem 
horrible  to  you — I  believe  that  I  really  hoped  to 
find  you  so.  Yet,  by  an  inconsistency  which  I  cannot 
explain,  I  felt  the  greatest  relief  on  hearing  that  you 
had  left."  Julie's  earlier  letters  after  their  separa- 
tion are  all  characterised  by  this  same  lack  of  ease 
and  uncertainty,  this  ebb  and  flow  of  contradictory 
feelings.  "  Since  I  do  not  know  how  your  depar- 
ture will  affect  me,"  she  says  to  him  before  he  leaves, 
"  I  cannot  tell  whether  I  shall  have  the  leisure  or 
the  will  to  write  to  you."  This  "  will,"  as  one  might 
expect,  does  not  even  wait  until  Guibert  has  passed 
the  frontier  of  France  ;  yet  the  long  pages  received 
by  him  at  Strassburg  were  certainly  calculated  to 
puzzle  even  a  man  so  accustomed  to  conquest. 
Thus  there  are  certain  pages  in  which  she  seems  to 
strive  for  self-control,  and  to  find  in  his  absence  the 
courage  denied  her  in  his  presence  :  "  No  !  no!  I 
do  not  want  your  friendship.  ...  It  exasperated 
me.  I  need  rest,  and  to  forget  you  for  a  time." 
Yet,  a  moment  later,  she  weakens  the  harshness  of 
this  sentence  :  "  Your  absence  has  restored  my  tran- 
quillity, but  it  has  increased  my  sadness.  I  cannot 
tell  whether  I  do  or  do  not  regret  you.  I  miss  you 


3o4  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

as  one  misses  a  pleasure."  She  is  haunted  by  fears 
lest  he  should  forget  her  amidst  the  excitements  of 
travel :  "  When  you  read  this,  you  will  be  Heaven 
knows  how  far  away.  Your  body  will  have  travelled 
only  three  hundred  miles,  but  what  a  distance  your 
mind  will  have  covered !  You  will  be  in  the  midst 
of  such  new  sights,  such  new  thoughts  and  ideas !  I 
feel  as  though  I  were  speaking  to  your  shadow  now  ; 
everything  that  I  have  ever  known  of  you  is  gone  ; 
and  how  hardly  will  you  find  in  your  memory  a  trace 
of  the  affection  which  animated  you  during  your  last 
days  here ! "  This  prospect  agitates  her  so  much 
that  she  appeals  in  almost  suppliant  terms  to  that 
same  friendship  of  which  but  a  moment  before  she 
seemed  so  reckless :  "Would  to  Heaven  that  you 
were  my  friend,  or  that  I  had  never  known  you ! 
Do  you  believe  that  you  can  be  my  friend  ?  Think, 
just  once,  if  I  ask  too  much?  " 

Separation  is  opening  her  eyes  to  the  truth.  This 
agitation,  this  anguish,  this  emptiness  of  life,  are 
surely  no  usual  indications  of  pure  and  calm  affec- 
tion? She  has  known  their  like  before.  There- 
fore she  analyses  herself  long  and  faithfully ;  and, 
trembling  at  her  own  answers,  applies  to  her  absent 
friend  to  help  unravel  her  own  soul,  and  to  comfort 
her  in  her  distress :  "  Tell  me,  is  this  the  tone  of 
friendship,  of  confidence?  What  is  this  which 
sweeps  me  on  ?  Help  me  to  recover  my  real  self! 
Is  this  remorse,  which  so  overwhelms  my  soul, 
my  fault  ? — you  ? — your  departure  ?  What  is  it  that 
persecutes  me  ?  I  am  at  the  end  of  my  strength  ! 
At  this  moment  I  confide  absolutely  in  you,  yet 


REMORSE    FOR   MORA  305 

perhaps  I  shall  never  see  you  again."  The  mood 
returns  a  few  weeks  later  :  "  I  no  longer  know  what 
I  owe  you,  nor  what  I  give  you.  I  can  scarcely 
bear  your  absence,  yet  I  am  not  sure  that  your 
presence  would  help  me.  What  a  horrible  situa- 
tion is  this,  wherein  pleasure,  consolation — our  all  is 
turned  to  poison !  What  shall  I  do  ?  Tell  me  !  Tell 
me,  where  is  peace  found  ?  Oh,  how  many  deaths 
one  can  die  without  dying  ! " 

The  suffering  in  these  lines  is  too  patent  to  need 
explanation.  Julie  has  lost  the  right  to  dispose  of 
this  quivering  heart,  so  surely  slipping  away  from 
her,  whose  every  beat  is  now  a  species  of  treason 
against  him  into  whose  hands  it  was  so  lately  given. 
A  letter  from  Mora  received  on  the  eve  of  Guibert's 
departure,  and  full  of  tenderness  and  confidence, 
roused  the  first  pricks  of  remorse.  "  He  speaks 
of  me,  of  what  I  am  thinking,  of  my  soul,  with  the 
knowledge  and  certainty  given  by  deep  and  strong 
feeling."  Her  sleeping  conscience  sprang  to  full 
life  as  she  read.  She  wrote  to  Guibert  again  :  "  I 
want  to  be  sincere  with  you  and  with  myself,  and  I 
am  really  afraid  lest  my  present  perplexity  deceive 
myself.  Perhaps  my  remorse  is  greater  than  my 
fault,  my  alarm  itself  the  greatest  offence  to  him 
whom  I  love."  But,  reason  and  seek  to  reassure 
herself  as  she  may,  the  inner  voice  answers  that 
she  is  really  guilty.  "  What  fatality  led  you  to  me  ? 
Why  did  I  not  die  in  September?  I  should  then 
have  died  without  regret  or  self-reproach  !  I  would 
die  for  him  to-day ;  there  is  no  sacrifice  I  would 
not  make  for  him.  The  difference  is,  that  there  was 

u 


3o6  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

then  no  possibility  of  '  sacrifice.'     I  did  not  love  him 
more,  but  better." 

The  first  separation  between  Julie  de  Lespinasse 
and  Count  Guibert  thus  begins  the  struggle  which 
was  to  rend  her  soul  for  three  years,  and  the  first  real 
blow  in  this  long  martyrdom  fell  when,  early  in  the 
separation,  a  letter  from  Spain  brought  the  saddest 
news.  The  Marquis  de  Mora's  cure  at  Bagneres 
proved  far  from  successful.  Terrible  haemorrhages, 
combined  with  the  bleedings  prescribed  by  the  doctor, 
weakened  him  to  such  an  extent  that  it  was  doubted 
whether  he  could  travel  to  Madrid  on  its  conclusion. 
"  He  has  left  Bagneres  in  such  a  condition,"  Julie 
wrote  to  Condorcet,  "that  I  fear  for  his  life.  His 
doctor  is  with  him,  but,  though  he  may  help  him, 
he  offers  no  guarantee  against  a  relapse,  which  the 
Marquis  could  never  survive  in  his  present  exhausted 
condition.  He  has  been  bled  nine  times,  and  was 
so  utterly  weakened  as  to  be  incapable  of  appreciat- 
ing the  danger  of  his  journey.  Most  excellent  and 
kindest  of  men,  think  of  me  in  this  situation  ! " 
Mora,  however,  reached  Bayonne,  where  his  sister, 
the  Duchesse  de  Villa  Hermosa,  awaited  him,  and 
together  they  returned  to  the  Spanish  capital.  Rest, 
good  care,  and  his  native  air  greatly  improved  his 
condition,  but  he  had  need  of  all  his  strength  in  a 
severe  trial  that  now  supervened.  His  mother,  the 
Countess  de  Fuentes,  herself  very  ill  and  declining 
rapidly,  rallied  her  failing  strength  to  combat  her 
son's  unhappy  passion.  Mora  entreated  her  con- 
sent to  his  marriage  with  Julie.  She  replied  with  a 
formal  refusal,  and  was  encouraged  in  her  obstinate 


MORA'S   UNEASINESS  307 

resistance  to  renewed  pleas  by  the  young  Duchesse 
de  Villa  Hermosa,  who  dreaded  for  her  brother  the 
influence  of  "  the  crafty  Frenchwoman."  "  I  have 
a  presentiment,"  writes  Julie,  justly  uneasy,  "that 
Madame  de  Villa  Hermosa  will  poison  the  rest  of 
my  life.  I  trust  that  she  will  not  also  poison  his  !  " 
These  family  quarrels  and  discussions,  joined  to  the 
postponement  of  his  hopes,  threw  Mora  into  a  state 
of  utter  despair.  His  fidelity,  however,  remained 
staunch  as  always — witness  again  one  of  Julie's 
letters.  "  I  have  had  ten  pages  from  him,  full  of 
tenderness  and  sorrow.  He  is  far  more  unhappy 
than  I.  He  knows  better  how  to  love,  he  has  more 
character;  in  a  word,  he  has  everything  to  make 
him  the  most  unhappy  and  the  most  beloved  of  men." 
We  may  well  believe  that  if  Mora  had  not  been 
so  weak  he  would  have  adapted  his  conduct  more 
wisely  to  the  situation,  for  mother  and  sister,  thus 
defied,  did  not  scruple  to  resort  to  extreme  measures. 
Taking  advantage  of  the  weakness  which  confined 
the  invalid  to  his  room,  they  intercepted,  when 
possible,  both  the  letters  leaving  Madrid  and  those 
coming  from  France.  This  led  to  periods  of  enforced 
silence  between  the  friends,  followed  by  recrimina- 
tions against  the  post :  "  Our  letters  are  lost — there 
is  great  delay,"  Julie  complained  at  first,  but  such 
an  explanation  did  not  satisfy  her  when  the  accident 
recurred.  Her  suspicions  led  to  appeals  to  the  Due 
de  Villa  Hermosa  through  d'Alembert,  whose  corre- 
spondence with  Mora's  friend  and  brother-in-law, 
still  preserved  in  the  archives  of  the  house  of 
Villa  Hermosa,  is  a  precious  source  of  information. 


308  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

"  Although  Monsieur  de  Mora's  friends  approve  of 
his  silence,"  writes  the  philosopher,  "they  are 
nevertheless  very  much  alarmed ;  they  fear  that 
he  is  unable  to  break  it,  rather  than  obliged  by  his 
regimen  to  keep  it.  We  beg  that  the  Due  de  Villa 
Hermosa  will  kindly  inform  Monsieur  de  Mora's 
friends  whether  his  lungs  have  recovered  from  the 
violent  attack  at  Bagneres,  whether  he  still  suffers 
from  fainting-fits,  and  what  food  he  takes  ?  We 
trust  that  these  questions,  will  be  kindly  pardoned 
on  the  ground  of  the  friendship  which  dictates 
them.  .  .  ." 

Mora's  brother-in-law  replies  to  this  request  with 
the  greatest  cordiality,  and  spares  no  details  :  "  You 
may  assure  his  friends  that  his  lungs  have  recovered 
from  the  attack  from  which  he  suffered  at  Bagneres, 
and  that  he  has  had  no  return  of  the  fainting-fits. 
He  is,  however,  still  too  weak  to  limit  himself  to  a 
vegetable  diet;  he  eats  a  little puchero,  our  Spanish 
dish  of  chicken  and  veal.  He  is  even  obliged  to 
take  his  meals  alone,  and  only  yesterday  was  he 
able  for  the  first  time  to  do  me  the  honour  of  dining 
with  me.  This  is  the  first  occasion  on  which  he  has 
left  his  room  at  such  an  hour.  He  goes  out  very 
little,  and  with  every  imaginable  precaution  against 
the  cold,  keen  air  of  this  country.  In  a  word,  I  have 
the  honour  to  tell  you  that  he  is  recovering,  but 
slowly.  He  begs  me  to  assure  you  and  his  friends 
of  his  gratitude,  and  to  tell  you  that  he  wrote  last 
week,  and  by  the  three  preceding  posts,  to  Mademoi- 
selle de  Lespinasse.  .  .  ." 

Subsequent  letters  from  the  Duke,  with  others  of 


HIS    NEW   RELAPSE  309 

Mora's  own  forwarded  through  him,  seemed  to 
warrant  hopes  of  a  real  recovery ;  and  when  the 
last  of  the  winter  months  and  the  beginning  of 
spring  passed  without  a  single  set-back,  Julie  began 
to  feel  hopeful.  But  this  was  not  to  last.  A  month 
after  Guibert's  departure  Mora  suffered  another 
serious  attack.  "  He  has  spat  blood,  he  has  been 
bled  twice,"  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  tells  Gui- 
bert.  "  When  the  post  left  he  was  better,  but  the 
haemorrhages  may  have  continued.  How  can  I  be 
calm,  with  this  thought?  .  .  .  Suffering,"  she  con- 
tinues, "  has  weakened  my  soul,  and  I  succumb  to  it. 
At  five  o'clock  this  morning  I  took  two  grains  of 
opium.  It  gives  me  calm,  which  is  better  than  sleep. 
...  I  can  speak  to  you  now  and  bemoan  myself,  but 
yesterday  I  could  not  have  found  words  to  express 
my  fear  for  the  life  of  him  I  love.  I  must  have  died 
then,  sooner  than  utter  these  words  which  freeze 
my  heart.  You  have  loved  ;  think,  then,  what  it  is 
to  have  such  fearful  anxiety !  And  until  Wednes- 
day I  am  to  continue  in  an  uncertainty  which, 
terrible  though  it  be,  yet  commands  me  to  live 
until  then." 

The  anxiety  which  preys  upon  Julie,  and  which, 
she  says,  "  keeps  me  between  convulsions  and 
fainting-fits,"  has  a  curious  effect  upon  her  feeling 
for  Guibert.  Her  superstitious  nature,  reinforced  by 
no  religious  sense,  finds  in  her  morbid  self-torturings 
the  just  reward  of  faithlessness,  and  its  proper 
punishment.  An  accursed  destiny  has  thrown  this 
fatal  consoler  in  her  way.  "  Yes,  truly,  I  believe 
that  my  day  last  year  at  Moulin-Joli  was  fatal  to  my 


3io  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

life.  ...  I  hate  and  abhor  the  chance  that  led  me 
to  write  you  that  first  note  !  "  She  is  not  content  with 
accusing  herself,  but  blames  Guibert  also  for  the 
affection  which  he  has  inspired.  "  Oh,  what  are  you, 
that  you  should  for  one  instant  have  diverted  me 
from  the  most  charming,  the  most  perfect  of  men  ?  " 
Consuming  bitterness  of  this  kind  spends  itself  in 
blaming,  often  with  high  injustice,  the  traveller  who, 
much  surprised  by  variations  of  mood  to  which  he 
holds  no  key,  is  often  puzzled  how  to  read  her  real 
meaning.  "  I  am  not  content  with  your  friendship," 
she  writes.  "  It  was  cold  and  thoughtless  not  to 
tell  me  why  you  failed  in  your  promise  to  write 
from  Dresden.  .  .  .  And  then — shall  I  say  it  ? — I 
am  wounded  that  you  should  thank  me  for  my 
interest  in  you.  Do  you  call  that  response  ?  You 
think  me  very  unjust,  very  difficult  to  please.  I 
am  not  so,  but  I  am  just  a  woman — very  true,  very 
ill,  and  very  unhappy.  Did  I  hide  from  you  my 
feelings  or  my  thoughts,  there  were  nothing  left  to 
tell."  "You  are  young,"  she  resumes,  a  few  weeks 
later;  "you  have  known  love,  and  you  have  suffered  ; 
therefore  you  claim  a  sensitive  nature.  Your  claim 
is  baseless." 

Complaints  and  reproaches  of  this  nature  fill 
Julie's  pen  from  henceforward  ;  but  they  are  still 
passing  clouds,  and  quickly  dispelled  by  her  love. 
Each  backward  step  is  followed  by  an  advance,  and 
the  fear  of  having  offended  her  friend  inspires  as 
constant  revelations  of  her  love,  until,  further  pre- 
tence becoming  impossible,  she  loyally  confesses 
the  passion  which  nothing  may  withstand.  Of  such 


JULIE   CONFESSES   TO   GUIBERT     311 

avowals,  few,  surely,  have  found  more  charming  and 
delicate  expression.  "  I  love  you  too  much  to  wish 
to  restrain  my  feeling,  and  to  need  ask  your  pardon 
is  better  than  not  to  have  deserved  it.  With  you  I 
have  no  vanity.  I  approach  the  state  of  nature  with 
the  warmth  and  good  faith  of  the  savage,  and  herein 
I  confess  no  duties  towards  my  friend,  for  neither  this 
world  nor  its  pains  have  yet  corrupted  my  heart. 
Do  not  quibble  ;  give  me  all  you  can.  You  will 
see  that  I  shall  not  abuse  the  gift,  and  you  will  see 
how  well  I  can  love !  My  life  is  my  love  for  you  ; 
mine  only  knowledge  this — how  to  love!"  There 
is  tenderness  again  under  the  apparent  rudeness  of 
this:  "I  accept  none  of  your  praises,  and  that — 
I  astonish  you ! — because  they  do  not  praise  me. 
What  do  I  care  that  you  do  not  think  me  stupid  ? 
This  is  a  strange  thing,  yet  one  true  withal — you 
are  he  whom  alone  in  all  the  world  I  do  not  care 
to  please"  And  finally  we  see  her  cast  away  all 
pride,  and  in  suppliant  terms  implore,  in  default  of 
tenderness,  a  little  kindness  and  pity.  "  Remember 
that  you  owe  something  to  my  misfortunes.  I 
am  unhappy  and  ill.  Do  these  things  not  appeal 
to  your  kindness  ?  Yet  will  I  repay  you  with 
gratitude  infinite.  A  poor  motive,  is  hot  this,  and 
a  pitiable  feeling  ?  " 

This  language,  so  undisguisedly  that  of  love, 
is  not  to  be  mistaken.  Still  timid,  perhaps,  the 
passion  is  yet  full-grown,  and  already  claims  exclu- 
sive possession  of  her  heart.  Any  doubt  which 
Guibert  might  retain  on  the  point  could  not  outlast 
the  deep  suffering  with  which  Julie  regards  his  con- 


3i2  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

tinued  connection  with  Madame  de  Montsauge — a 
name  constantly  mentioned  in  her  letters,  and  a  con- 
nection which  evokes  her  painful  curiosity.  She  will 
know  whether  a  letter  from  his  mistress  arrived  by  the 
same  post  as  her  own,  and  which  of  the  two  he  read 
first?  "You  must  classify  us.  Give  me  my  place, 
and,  since  I  have  no  liking  for  change,  let  it  be 
moderately  good.  I  shall  not  encroach  on  demesnes 
on  which  you  tolerate  that  unfortunate  person." 
Often,  too,  she  bewails  the  lot  of  a  superior  man 
tied  to  so  uncomprehending  a  person.  "  How 
comes  it  that  this  woman  does  not  love  you  to  dis- 
traction, as  you  desire  to  be  loved,  as  you  should 
be  loved  ?  For  what  else  does  she  reserve  her  soul 
or  her  life  ?  I  am  sure  that  she  has  neither  taste 
nor  feeling.  She  should  love  you,  were  it  only  for 
vanity's  sake.  .  .  .  But  what  is  this  to  me  ?  Either 
you  are  satisfied,  or  you  love  her  harmful  influ- 
ence!" These  are  Julie's  own  words,  and  she 
could  scarcely  have  painted  a  clearer  picture  of  the 
growth  of  the  jealous  passion  which  was  to  become 
the  worst  torment  of  her  latter  days. 

Jealous  pangs  were  not  the  only  anxiety  of 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  at  this  time.  She  can- 
not conceal  her  engrossing  fear  lest  her  intimacy 
with  Guibert,  innocent  though  it  be,  may  become 
suspect  by  the  gossips,  and  the  news  of  it  travel  to 
Madrid  and  bring  despair  to  her  faithful  lover. 
"Chastellux,"  she  writes,  when  this  friend  has  one 
day  made  a  discreet  allusion  to  her  new  "interest," 
11  maintains  that  I  love  you  dearly.  How  does  he 
know?  Have  you  told  him?"  Julie  was  still  more 


HER   FEAR   OF    DISCOVERY        313 

alarmed  when  Madame  de  Boufflers  told  a  large 
company  of  people,  assembled  in  her  own  house, 
that  Guibert  was  estranged  from  Madame  de  Mont- 
sauge  on  account  of  a  new  and  unknown  flame.  He 
was  travelling,  she  added,  in  order  to  "get  over  it." 
"After  numerous  interesting  conjectures  as  to  who 
she  could  be,  I  was  asked  whether  I  did  not  know 
you  well,  and  how  much  I  loved  you,  since  I  re- 
mained so  silent  ?  Certainly,  said  I,  /  love  kirn  well, 
for  this  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  knowing  him 
at  all.  Then,  you  do  know  who  she  is  ? — all  about 
it,  in  fact?  Certainly  not:  I  know  nothing  at  all 
about  it!"  The  mere  thought  of  this  scene  and 
its  possible  openings  for  scandal  terrified  Julie,  who 
implored  Guibert  never  to  mention  her  name  and 
scrupulously  to  destroy  her  letters.  "  I  can  see 
them  tumbling  from  the  regular  budgets  that  you 
pull  from  your  pockets,  and  your  carelessness  makes 
me  shudder."  Her  fears  were  certainly  justified, 
else  the  passage  just  quoted  would  never  have  found 
place  in  these  pages.  She,  unfortunately,  was  more 
prudent ;  very  few  of  Guibert's  letters  of  this  period 
are  to  be  found.  The  few  which  do  exist,  however, 
read  in  the  light  of  passages  from  Julie's  own,  permit 
us  to  conjecture  in  what  measure  he  reciprocated 
the  great  tenderness  of  which  he  was  the  object, 
notwithstanding  that  she  was  herself  in  some  doubt 
upon  the  point.  "What  do  you  think  of  a  heart 
which  gives  itself  before  it  is  sure  of  welcome  ? " 
Guibert's  first  feeling  about  this  seems  to  have  lain 
between  surprise  and  something  akin  to  uneasiness. 
He  appears  disconcerted  by  this  headlong  passion, 


3i4  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

this  manner  of  loving  so  new  to  him,  and  until  now 
unknown.  Neither  the  frivolous  gallantry  to  which 
he  has  been  used,  nor  the  calm  and  tolerant  affection 
of  Madame  de  Montsauge,  had  prepared  him  for 
this  impetuous  flood.  He  tacked  and  retreated, 
wrote  at  rare  intervals,  and,  when  Julie  complained 
of  his  silence,  excused  himself  clumsily:  "I  say 
continually  '  To-morrow  I  will  write.'  But  the  days 
pass,  and  I  have  written  to  no  one.  When  you  do 
not  hear  from  me,  be  sure,  once  for  all,  that  I  am 
dead  to  the  whole  world." 

Guibert,  at  this  time,  evinced  a  gift  for  avoiding 
the  personal  note — any  note  which  can  compromise 
a  man,  indeed.  His  letters  retailed  stories  and  de- 
scriptions interesting  without  doubt,  but  so  banal 
in  character  that  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  might 
safely  relate  them  to  her  regular  friends,  even  to  the 
Marquis  de  Mora.  "You  tell  me  so  little  of  your- 
self," ran  a  sad  reproach,  "  that  your  letters  might 
be  meant  for  any  of  the  ladies  of  your  acquaintance. 
Mine  could  have  but  one  address!"  His  ear  was 
deaf  to  this.  Pretending  that  he  cannot  understand, 
his  answer  saw  in  these  transparent  avowals  no 
more  than  the  assurance  of  friendship  :  "I  cherish 
your  advice,  and  think  with  pleasure  that  it  means 
that  you  will  be  glad  to  see  me  again.  I  beg  you 
to  take  care  of  yourself  until  I  return.  Try  to  calm 
yourself.  .  .  .  Friendship  such  as  I  feel,  or  rather 
such  as  you  have  inspired  in  me,  has  greater  claims 
upon  me  than  you  can  imagine.  ...  I  love  your 
friendship  as  it  is  ;  its  warmth  makes  my  happiness, 
and  does  not,  I  hope,  diminish  your  own."  But  in 


HER   JEALOUSY  315 

the  pleasure  with  which  he  anticipates  again  seeing 
Julie,  he  is  careful  to  include  d'Alembert :  "  I  rejoice 
in  Monsieur  d'Alembert's  friendship  for  me,  and 
shall  be  delighted  to  see  him  again ! " 

Upon  one  point,  however,  Julie  has  leave  for 
satisfaction.  Guibert  criticises  Madame  de  Mont- 
sauge — her  head  and  her  heart.  "What  do  you 
think,"  he  writes,  "  of  an  affection  which  should  be 
much  stronger  than  yours,  and  is  so  far  behind  it  ? 
Ah !  do  not  enlighten  me — you  would  distress  me 
too  much.  .  .  .  Do  you  think  I  would  not  exchange 
her  mind  for  yours — if  I  were  able  ?  "  Yet  the  next 
line  destroys  the  effect  of  these  words,  for  it  links  dis- 
dained mistress  and  new  friend  as  equals.  "  What  a 
ridiculous  list  is  this  of  those  who  are  preferred  to 
you !  I  give  you  my  word  of  honour  that  you  and 
Madame  de  Montsauge  are  the  first  objects  of  my 
thoughts.  I  could  not  say  to  which  I  write  first ; 
to-day  it  happens  to  be  '  you.' " 

Amidst  these  misunderstandings  and  disagree- 
ments, Guibert's  journey  drew  to  its  close.  Having 
exhausted  Prussia,  Silesia,  and  Austria,  Julie  heard 
with  despair  that  he  purposed  visiting  St.  Peters- 
burg. "  I  hate  Russia,  now  that  you  want  to  go 
there.  Before,  I  hated  only  the  Russians."  To 
Russia,  however,  he  did  not  go,  nor  yet  to  Sweden  ; 
but  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  was  suspicious,  de- 
spite her  joy  at  the  news.  "  Why  did  you  abandon 
your  Northern  journey  ?  I  cannot  believe  that  it 
is  only  in  order  to  curtail  your  absence.  You  have 
sacrificed  Sweden  because  some  one  has  asked 
this  of  you,  and  you  are  content.  .  .  .  But,  what- 


3i6  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

ever  be  the  cause,  I  bless  the  person  or  thing 
which  hastens  your  return."  At  the  end  of  August, 
Guibert  was  about  to  leave  Vienna  on  his  return. 
Three  silent  weeks  ensued,  and  when  Julie  again 
received  a  letter,  its  news  was  little  calculated  to 
soothe  her  feelings.  Upon  the  very  eve  of  de- 
parture, the  writer  had  fallen  ill  of  severe  intestinal 
fever.  He  had  scarcely  begun  to  recover  from  this 
serious  illness  when,  thanks  to  a  confusion  of  names 
— the  police  read  "Guibert"  instead  of  "Gulibert" 
— the  author  of  the  "  Tactique  "  found  himself  im- 
plicated in  the  obscure  political  affair  which  had 
already  sent  Favier  and  Dumouriez  to  the  Bastille. 
Failing  to  prove  his  innocence,  Guibert  fully  ex- 
pected arrest  when  he  should  cross  the  frontier. 

Julie's  reception  of  this  news  may  be  imagined. 
The  political  complication  troubled  her  not  at  all, 
for  her  powerful  connections  promptly  cleared  Gui- 
bert of  all  suspicion.  The  news  of  his  illness,  and 
the  fear  that  he  had  not  told  the  worst  of  it,  were 
other  matters.  She  was  afflicted  beyond  descrip- 
tion. "  From  the  tone  of  your  letter,  I  see  that  you 
are  very  weak,  very  pale,  and  very  despondent.  .  .  . 
In  the  name  of  friendship,  take  no  risks.  Sleep, 
rest,  and  do  not  in  your  haste  to  arrive  the  sooner 
risk  the  chance  of  never  returning !  "  This  was  wise 
counsel,  and  she  probably  wished  it  unsaid  when 
the  first  week  of  October  brought  another  letter — 
still  from  Vienna — in  which  the  writer  expressed 
himself  uncertain  as  to  whether  he  should  return 
to  Paris  or  yet  further  prolong  his  travels.  "  Come 
back  !  come  back !  to  go  on  would  be  criminal." 
Julie's  urgent  entreaty  bore  fruit  in  a  reply  dated 


HER   SELF-REPROACHES          317 

the  gth  of  October  :  "  This  time  I  am  really  coming, 
and  that  you  may  feel  quite  sure  of  it,  I  report  that 
I  have  had  no  fever  for  four  days,  that  my  carriage 
is  waiting,  and  that  I  shall  have  entered  it  within 
two  minutes.  .  .  ."  He  expected  to  travel  by  short 
stages,  but  the  end  of  the  month  should  see  him 
home  without  fail.  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse 
was  overjoyed  by  this  promise,  until  jealousy 
prompted  the  fear  that  he  might  first  visit  La 
Breteche  and  Madame  de  Montsauge.  "  When  I 
see  you,  you  will  doubtless  still  be  engrossed  with 
your  meeting  with  her  whom  you  love.  Acknow- 
ledge that  you  will  be  further  from  me  that  day  than 
you  were  at  Breslau.  But  why  should  I  object ! 
Come  to  me  after  that  excitement  has  passed, 
and  I  shall  be  only  too  happy."  Guibert  good- 
humouredly  tries  to  dispel  this  fear.  "  I  shall  see 
you  before  'her.'  This  is  doubtless  because  Paris 
lies  first  on  my  road,  yet  were  the  reverse  true,  I 
would  still  come  straight  to  you,  did  I  think  that  your 
suffering,  your  health,  or  your  soul  demanded  it." 

The  feelings  with  which  Mademoiselle  de  Lespi- 
nasse awaited  this  meeting  were  indeed  tumultuous, 
for  love  and  fear,  desire  and  jealousy,  were  strug- 
gling for  the  mastery.  She  confessed  so  much  to  the 
man  who  henceforth  held  her  life  between  his  hands. 
"  My  remorse  at  yielding  to  my  liking  for  you  now 
seems  my  reproach.  .  .  .  Did  I  then  deceive  my- 
self ?  Do  I  do  so  now  ?  By  my  faith,  I  cannot  tell. 
Your  soul  is  not  crushed  by  sorrow.  Judge  then 
for  me,  and  when  we  meet  you  shall  yourself  instruct 
me  whether  I  must  applaud  or  deplore  those  feelings 
wherewith  you  have  inspired  me." 


CHAPTER  XII 

Guibert  returns  to  Paris — Julie's  passionate  outburst — Guibert  breaks  with 
Madame  de  Montsauge — Soiree  of  February  IO,  1774 — Tragic  coinci- 
dence— First  excitement  after  the  fact — Julie  closes  her  salon — First  dis- 
illusionment— Jealous  suspicions  on  meeting  Madame  de  Boufflers  and 
Madame  de  Montsauge— Scenes  between  the  lovers — Julie's  despair  at 
her  own  weakness — Serious  relapse  of  the  Marquis  de  Mora — d'Alem- 
bert's  attempts  to  bring  him  back  to  Paris — Mora's  secret  doubt  of  Julie's 
faithfulness — He  sets  out  to  rejoin  her — Accident  consequent  on  fatigue 
of  the  journey — Final  letter  to  Julie — His  death — Julie's  anguish  and 
attempt  to  commit  suicide — Persistent  remorse — Her  letters  to  the  dead 
man — Surprising  patience  of  Guibert. 

MORE  entirely  even  than  before  his  return  did 
Guibert  now  exercise  his  irresistible  attraction  upon 
Julie.  Naturally,  as  it  were,  and  certainly  at  the 
cost  of  no  effort,  this  man  could  release  her  soul 
from  its  chaos  of  contending  feelings,  lead  it  from 
doubt  to  hope,  from  hope  to  rapture,  or  consign  it 
to  nethermost  despair,  and  all  in  a  moment  of  time. 
He  returned  from  his  travels  with  redoubled  fame, 
for  had  he  not  met  with  the  finest  reception  on  all 
sides,  even  from  the  great  Frederick,  whose  inti- 
macy he  had  enjoyed  for  a  week.  Voltaire,  after 
his  visit  to  Ferney,  had  called  him  a  "great  man," 
and  the  opinion  was  more  than  ever  unanimous  that 
his  name  would  figure  among  the  most  eminent  in 
history.  He  certainly  would  have  been  the  last  to 
doubt  this  verdict,  and  it  was  in  perfect  good  faith 
that  he  said,  while  sitting  for  his  portrait,  "  No  man 
should  be  painted  to  whom  posterity  will  not  erect 
a  statue." 


GUIBERTS    PASSION  319 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  was  not  chiefly  en- 
slaved by  the  brilliancy  of  this  "  genius."  Although 
she  admired  him  without  reserve,  she  was  some- 
times disquieted  by  the  conviction  that  strong 
spirits  like  his  must  love  rather  as  a  pastime  than 
because  love  is  the  cause  and  end  of  life.  "  I  often 
see  Monsieur  de  Guibert,"  she  confides  to  Count 
de  Crillon  ;  "I  find  him  very  charming,  but  he  un- 
doubtedly describes  himself  when  he  says  of  his 
'  Constable ' : 

'  His  talents  moved  him,  and  his  soul  weighed-down.' 

He  has  a  devouring  activity  which  quickly  exhausts 
one  interest  after  another,  so  that  the  engagements 
of  others  are  to  him  weariness." 

Let  Julie  fear  never  so  much,  however,  all  doubt 
vanished  at  a  glance  from  his  glowing  eyes,  a  tone 
of  that  eloquent  voice,  the  ardent  words  of  which 
thrilled  her  to  the  depths  of  her  being.  For  Guibert 
had  at  last  fallen  under  the  spell  of  the  "enchantress," 
her  passion  stirred  in  his  veins,  and  he  dreamed 
with  her  of  ineffable  raptures  and  unknown  realms 
of  joy.  He  assured  Julie  that  he  had  definitely 
severed  his  relations  with  Madame  de  Montsauge, 
and  we  may  imagine  with  what  gratitude  she 
repaid  this  sacrifice.  He  was  free.  Could  woman 
ask  more,  or,  having  asked  so  much,  delay  yet 
another  hour  in  yielding  herself  to  the  flood  ? 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  had  won  her  hope, 
yet  it  brought  neither  the  calm  of  confidence  nor  the 
sweetness  of  surrender.  Sick  in  mind  and  body, 
she  was  the  victim  of  an  incessant  fever.  "  My 


320  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

health  is  detestable,"  she  wrote  a  few  days  before 
Guibert  returned  ;  "  I  cough  myself  to  pieces,  and 
the  cough  is  so  violent  that  I  spit  blood.  My 
voice  is  gone,  and  so  is  my  sleep — or  almost  so." 
Agitation  and  remorse  at  the  thought  of  Mora, 
and  her  yearning  for  the  continual  presence  of 
him  whose  occupations  too  often  called  him  away, 
increased  this  hectic  condition,  and  what  few  notes 
of  this  period  survive  contain  repeated  entreaties 
to  him  to  come  to  her  every  day  and  every  hour. 
"  My  friend,  I  am  not  to  see  you,  and  you  tell  me 
that  this  is  none  of  your  fault.  Yet,  had  you  the 
thousandth  part  of  my  desire  for  that  meeting  you 
were  here  and  I  were  happy,  for  to  me  there  is  no 
alternative  between  him  whom  I  love  and  loneli- 
ness. .  .  .  Shall  I  see  you  in  the  morning  or  in  the 
evening  ?  Better  the  morning,  which  comes  earlier, 
and  the  evening,  which  lasts  longer !  But  give  me 
that  which  you  may ;  I  shall  content  me  with  it ! " 

Julie's  inconceivable  sensitiveness  was  wounded 
by  the  slightest  forgetfulness  or  neglect,  and  corre- 
spondingly touched  by  the  least  attention.  "  My 
friend,  I  love  you  as  you  should  be  loved — to  excess, 
to  distraction,  with  rapture,  with  despair.  For  days 
you  have  tortured  my  soul,  yet  I  saw  you  this  morn- 
ing and  all  was  forgotten.  Nay !  it  seemed  to  me 
that  to  love  you  with  all  my  soul,  to  be  ready  to  live 
and  die  for  you,  was  not  enough.  Your  desert  is 
above  even  this ! "  There  is  only  one  ending  pos- 
sible when  a  man  and  woman  thus  write,  nor  was 
that  end  far  distant.  Julie's  own  letters  are  again 
the  sources  from  whence  her  story  is  to  be  known. 


THE    FATAL   DAY  321 

Whether  through  the  kindness  of  a  friend  or  by 
stretching  her  own  finances,  Julie  de  Lespinasse 
enjoyed  the  luxury  of  a  box  at  the  Opera  during 
the  winter  season  of  1774.  It  was  a  large  box  and 
a  comfortable,  with  an  ante-chamber  in  which  to 
spend  the  time  between  the  acts.  Guibert  had  a 
standing  invitation  to  share  it,  and  he  was  usually 
the  only  guest.  Side  by  side  in  the  box,  more  often 
upon  the  "  good  sofa  "  in  the  elegant  "  boudoir"  be- 
hind, the  pair  sat  chatting,  and  as  Guibert  acknow- 
ledges, "listening  very  badly"  to  "The  Village 
Wizard,"  "  Vertumnus  and  Pomona,"  or  the  other 
fashionable  pieces  of  the  day.  By  Julie's  frequent 
confession,  the  "divine  art  of  song"  was  prone  to 
move  her  mind  and  senses.  Its  influence  was  not 
diminished  when  her  feelings  were  keyed  to  the 
present  pitch.  Thus  the  opera,  on  the  evening  of 
February  loth,  proved  traitor  when  its  conclusion 
found  the  pair  seated  together  in  the  "boudoir." 
In  the  ensuing  silence  their  lips  were  drawn  to- 
gether; they  drank,  as  Julie  writes,  the  cup  of 
"  delicious  poison." 

By  a  tragic  coincidence,  on  the  same  day  and 
at  the  same  hour,  the  Marquis  de  Mora  was  again 
struck  down,  in  his  distant  home  at  Madrid,  by  a 
fresh  last  attack  of  his  malady — a  terrible  last  re- 
lapse, after  which  his  remaining  days  were  no  more 
than  a  long-drawn  death.  Exactly  one  year  later, 
on  February  10,  1775,  Julie  was  startled  by  the 
thought  of  this  anniversary.  "It  strikes  midnight,  my 
friend.  My  blood  is  frozen  by  sudden  remembrance ! 
...  By  what  fatality  is  it  that  the  keenest  and 

x 


322  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

sweetest  joy  is  linked  with  the  most  crushing  mis- 
fortune !  Great  God !  A  year  ago,  at  this  time, 
Monsieur  de  Mora  was  stricken  to  death,  and  I,  at 
the  same  instant,  three  hundred  miles  away,  was 
more  cruel  and  more  guilty  than  the  ignorant  bar- 
barians who  killed  him !  I  die  of  regret.  .  .  .  Fare- 
well, my  friend  ;  I  should  not  have  loved  you !  " 

The  news  of  Mora's  death  travelled  slowly,  and 
did  not  reach  Paris  until  March.  Thus,  for  a  few 
ecstatic  weeks,  Julie  rejoiced,  untroubled  by  the 
terror  and  remorse  which  were  to  follow.  Her 
rapture  forgot  all  qualms,  and  her  tongue  echoed 
her  rapture:  "  How  is  it  with  you?"  she  wrote  on 
the  day  succeeding  the  fatal  opera.  "  Shall  I  see 
you  ?  Ah !  deprive  me  of  nothing.  Time  is  so 
short,  and  I  set  such  price  upon  the  hours  shared 
with  you !  My  friend,  there  is  no  longer  opium  in 
my  blood  or  in  my  head.  There  is  worse — worse — 
matter  to  make  me  bless  Heaven  and  cling  to  life, 
were  it  sure  to  be  returned  with  equally  intense 
feeling  by  you.  .  .  .  Yes,  you  should  love  me  to 
distraction.  I  exact  nothing,  I  pardon  everything, 
I  am  never  angry.  My  friend,  I  am  perfect,  for  I 
love  you  perfectly."  "  I  have  thought  of  you  con- 
stantly," she  begins  anew,  a  few  days  later.  "  I  am 
so  engrossed  in  you  that  I  understand  the  feeling 
of  the  devotee  for  his  God."  Eighteen  months  later, 
recalling  this  period  of  infatuation,  she  repeated  this 
comparison.  "  You  speak  of  Lucifer,  who  aspired 
to  equal  God.  I  did  outstrip  him  once,  for  then  I 
would  not  have  changed  places  with  him  I  .  .  . 
Every  instant  of  my  life,  O  friend,  I  suffer,  I  love 


EARLY    HAPPINESS  323 

you,  I  await  you."  Was  ever  note  briefer  or  more 
eloquent  than  this  last  ? 

For  a  while  no  thought  of  her  "  treason,"  of  "  the 
sacrifice  of  her  virtue,"  of  all  those  things  which 
were  afterwards  such  torture,  troubled  these  delirious 
hours,  when  her  whole  being  was  engulfed  in  the 
flood  of  passion.  "  February  loth  has  sealed  my  fate 
— to  love  you  or  to  die."  Her  nature  was  so  changed 
that  she  believed  herself  for  ever  free  of  her  pursuing 
weaknesses — jealousy  and  suspicion,  and  a  chance 
meeting  with  Madame  de  Montsauge  strengthened 
the  conviction.  Julie  admired  her  rival's  face  and 
figure,  and  hoped,  she  says,  that  her  character  was 
correspondingly  amiable.  "  I  believe  it,  and  even 
desire  it.  Am  I  generous  ?  "  This  generosity  even 
inspires  her  to  take  an  interest  in  the  young  daughter 
of  her  erstwhile  foe.  "  Here  at  last  is  the  book. 
But  I  give  it  to  you  only  on  condition  that  you  give 
it  to  Madame  de  Montsauge.  Though  her  daughter 
is  older  than  Emiliej-  it  will  still  be  useful  to  her. 
There  be  many  such  beplumed  ladies  who  need  it, 
but  they  could  not  profit  by  it,  for  to  them  all  good 
things  must  ever,  like  their  plumes,  be  over  their 
heads." 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  could  no  more 
continue  in  such  a  mood  than  could  intercourse  be- 
tween two  people  of  such  opposite  characters  remain 
peaceful.  Julie,  we  know,  was  immoderate,  abso- 
lute, giving  herself  utterly  and  exacting  nothing  less  ; 
Guibert  was  a  man  who  craved  action  and  movement, 

1  Les  Conversations  cTEmilie,  par  Madame  d'Epinay,  then  recently 
published. 


324  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

and  who  also  brought  to  love  the  levity  and  egoism 
of  a  nature  ruined  by  too  numerous  conquests.  Her 
penetrating  intelligence  was  quick  to  recognise  how 
deep  a  gulf  separated  them.  "  Amusement,  occu- 
pation, and  action  fill  your  life  sufficiently.  My 
happiness  is  in  you,  and  in  you  alone." 

Time  could  only  amplify  the  result  of  such  essen- 
tial differences.  Julie's  passion  left  her  no  room  for 
other  interests  ;  she  no  longer  found  pleasure  in  the 
world,  either  fashionable  or  intellectual.  "  Do  not 
tell  me  that  society  has  resources.  It  is  to  me  an 
insupportable  constraint,  and  if  I  could  persuade 
Monsieur  d'Alembert  to  leave  me,  my  door  would 
be  closed."  This  new  hunger  for  solitude,  quiet, 
and  silence  led  her  to  be  very  unjust  even  to  those 
whose  friendship  she  had  once  most  valued.  She 
can  now  perceive  only  their  arrogance,  foolishness, 
and  conceit — "  the  collection  and  assortment  which 
has  peopled  hell  and  small  houses  for  a  thousand 
centuries.  This,"  she  continues,  "filled  my  room 
last  evening,  and  that  the  walls  still  stand  and 
the  floor  still  bears  are  things  surely  portentous ! 
Surrounded  by  all  these  prigs,  blockheads,  pedants, 
fools,  and  abominable  persons,  with  whom  I  have 
spent  my  day,  I  have  thought  only  of  you  and  of 
your  follies.  I  have  needed  you  and  longed  for 
you."  Here  is  another  pleasant  description  of  her 
old  associates  :  "  Heavens!  how  I  hate  and  despise 
them,  and  how  terrible  my  life  of  the  last  ten  years 
would  seem  to  me  now !  I  have  seen  the  petty 
vices  of  these  people  at  such  close  range,  I  have  so 
often  been  the  victim  of  their  small  and  ugly  passions, 


EARLY   SHADOWS  325 

that  I  hold  them  in  invincible  disgust,  and  a  fear 
which  would  find  entire  isolation  preferable  to  their 
horrible  society." 

Guibert,  on  the  contrary,  could  never  dispense 
with  the  tumult  that  she  so  abhors.  He  must  have 
a  public,  the  applause  and  admiration  of  his  kind. 
"  You  are  not  made  for  intimacy,"  she  murmurs 
sadly;  "you  need  the  action  of  the  outside  world, 
the  hubbub  of  society.  It  is  not  your  vanity  which 
demands  this,  but  your  activity."  Alone  with  any 
one,  even  his  mistress,  he  feels  an  unconquerable 
lassitude,  is  visibly  chilled,  and  allows  the  conver- 
sation to  languish,  sometimes  almost  falls  asleep. 
"Last  evening,"  she  wrote  one  day,  "resembled 
those  insipid  novels  which  make  both  the  author 
and  the  reader  yawn.  I  shall  have  to  quote  the 
King  of  Prussia  on  a  more  memorable  occasion,  and 
say,  'We  will  do  better  another  time.'"  Yet,  in 
spite  of  these  humiliations,  her  morbid  craving  for 
his  society  abases  her  pride  to  the  point  of  begging 
for  a  few  more  moments  of  his  time.  "  Do  you 
know  why  I  prefer  to  see  you  in  the  evening  rather 
than  during  the  rest  of  the  day  ?  Because  the 
lateness  of  the  hour  arrests  your  activity  !  You  can 
no  longer  fly  to  catch  Madame  So-and-so,  or  to  see 
Gluck,  or  to  do  any  of  the  useless  things  which 
seem  to  interest  you  only  because  they  enable  you 
the  sooner  to  leave  me." 

A  persistence  which  would  always  be  strange 
becomes  the  stranger  since  Julie  was  every  day 
more  clearly  disillusioned  as  to  the  heart  which 
she  had  supposed  her  own.  She  knew  it  within 


326  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

three  months.  "  How  could  I  have  been  so  mis- 
taken, he  have  so  deceived  me?  How  did  my 
spirit  fail  to  restrain  my  heart,  and  how  can  that 
heart  for  ever  sit  to  judge  you,  yet  be  no  less 
eternally  your  slave  at  call  ? "  A  single  doubt  as 
to  Guibert's  utter  incapacity  for  real  feeling  is  now 
inadmissible,  or  that  love,  in  his  kind,  is  more  than 
"  the  accident  of  his  age."  Give  him  the  ideal 
woman,  all  grace  and  endowed  with  all  perfections 
— "  the  face  of  Madame  Forcalquier  at  twenty, 
Madame  de  Brionne's  nobility,  the  spirit  of  Madame 
de  Montsauge  grafted  upon  that  of  Madame  de 
Boufflers  " — not  for  a  moment  could  he  make  even 
this  ideal  happy.  The  Julie  who  knew  this  could 
expect  nothing  for  herself.  Conviction  became  so 
strong  that  rarely  indeed  does  she  dare  to  speak 
openly,  or  to  give  expression  to  the  deep  springs  of 
her  being.  "  I  speak  to  you  neither  of  my  regret  nor 
of  my  remembrances,  nor,  crueller  far,  may  I  show 
you  more  than  a  part  of  my  love  for  you,  while  my 
soul  must  contain  the  passion  with  which  you  fill  it. 
.  .  .  For  I  must  repeat  this  thing,  '  He  could  not 
respond,  he  could  not  understand,  and  the  pain  of 
it  would  kill  me.' " 

Mistrust  naturally  followed  fast  upon  lost  illu- 
sions, and  dormant  jealousy  lifted  a  head  more 
active  and  more  unruly  than  ever.  Guibert  was  un- 
deniably pursued  by  her  sex ;  there  was  no  need  to 
search  for  rivals,  yet  Julie's  skill  in  forging  her  own 
deceptions  was  marvellous.  Madame  de  Boufflers 
was  early  suspect,  and  possibly  not  without  cause, 
for  her  exquisite  charm  and  wit  we  already  know, 


JULIE'S   JEALOUSY  327 

no  less  than  her  skill  in  the  art  of  pleasing,  and  her 
lifelong  and  consistent  desire  for  admiration.  Her 
letter  written  to  Guibert  while  in  Germany,  and 
afterwards  found  among  the  papers  of  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse,  shows  her  cleverness  in  finding  the 
weak  spot  in  this  conceited  man  :  "  Of  my  pre- 
sumption, sir,  I  do  confess  me ;  yet,  new  as  is  our 
acquaintance,  I  claim  the  rights  of  old  friendship. 
You  have  directed  letters  hitherward,  and  I  repine 
in  secret,  for  never  a  one  is  sent  to  me.  I  cannot 
feel  surprise  at  the  King  of  Prussia's  reception  of 
you,  but  I  do  admire  your  noble  confession  of  con- 
fusion in  his  presence  and  of  your  respect  for  him. 
.  .  .  Keep  your  noble  enthusiasm.  Never  be  per- 
suaded that  man's  natural  gait  is  to  crawl  in  the 
mud.  A  spirit  like  this  of  yours  is  a  never-ending 
pleasure.  A  small  share  in  it  you  have  permitted 
me.  In  this  lies  the  supreme  happiness  of  my 
life,  yet  I  may  not  dare  speak  of  it  to  any  one 
but  you.  .  .  ." 

Guibert's  frequent  calls  on  Madame  de  Boufflers, 
after  his  return  from  Prussia,  led  to  instant  gossip. 
The  rumour  of  course  reached  Julie's  ears,  and 
produced  intense  agitation:  "Abbe  Morellet  said 
a  few  days  ago,  in  the  innocence  of  his  heart,  that 
you  were  much  enamoured  of  Madame  de  Boufflers, 
that  you  were  much  preoccupied  with  her  and  with 
the  desire  of  pleasing  her,  &c.  All  this  seems  so 
probable  that  I  feel  I  ought  to  complain  that  you 
have  not  confided  in  me,  even  though  the  truth  be 
something  less  than  report  says.  I  ask  from  you  but 
one  satisfaction,  the  truth,  and  be  assured  that  there 


328  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

is  nothing  that  I  cannot  bear  to  hear.  You  may 
think  me  weak,  and  wish  to  spare  me,  but  the  fact  is 
not  so.  Never,  on  the  contrary,  have  I  felt  stronger. 
I  have  the  strength  to  suffer."  Neither  Guibert's 
denial,  nor  the  disdainful  tone  in  which  he  takes 
care  to  speak  of  Madame  de  Boufflers,  availed  to 
banish  Julie's  suspicion,  and  her  letters  are  full  of 
stinging  allusions  and  veiled  reproaches  on  this  sub- 
ject. But  the  Countess  is  only  a  slight  annoyance,  a 
surface  grievance  ;  Julie's  real  torment,  which  gnaws 
constantly  at  her  heart,  is  jealousy  of  Madame  de 
Montsauge.  Though  Guibert  kept  faith  and  were 
no  longer  her  lover,  he  remained  a  friend  of  his  old 
mistress,  and  confessed  a  regard  for  her  which  was 
more  than  Julie  could  bear.  "  I  notice  that  you 
take  pleasure  in  paying  attentions  to  Madame  de 
Montsauge.  .  .  .  You  give  or  lend  to  her  any- 
thing that  interests  you,  while  I  must  ever  endure 
the  other  extreme — forgetfulness,  neglect,  refusal. 
Three  months  ago  you  promised  me  one  of  your 
books,  and  I  have  had  to  borrow  it  of  another.  It 
is  doubtless  well  that  the  sufferer  from  this  ungra- 
ciousness should  be  myself.  There  is  justice  in  this, 
and  I  do  not  complain — except  of  its  excess."  This 
is  the  voice  of  Julie's  bitterness.  Despair  follows 
fast :  "  When  you  read  this,  I  wager  that  you  will 
already  have  received  a  note  saying : 

'  For  thee  I  mourn  the  transports  of  my  heart ; 
Where  is  thy  joy,  if  Montsauge  lack  her  part  ?  ' 

Ah,  believe  her,  restore  to  her  her  tranquillity,  and, 
if  possible,  be  happy.     This  is  the  wish,  the  desire, 


JULIE'S   JEALOUSY  329 

and  the  prayer  of  the  unhappy  creature  to  whom  is 
ever  present  the  terrible  inscription  on  the  Gate  of 
Hell — '  All  ye  who  enter  here,  leave  hope  behind.'" 
In  May,  Guibert  spent  several  days  at  La 
Breteche,  the  chateau  of  her  who  inspired  Julie 
with  such  fear  and  hatred.  This  first  real  separa- 
tion since  the  fateful  tenth  of  February  would  have 
cruelly  wounded  Julie  even  if  her  rival  had  not  been 
the  cause  of  it.  Her  pain  may  be  read  between 
the  lines  of  her  utter  silence.  To  Guibert,  in  Paris, 
she  writes  upon  any  and  every  pretext ;  Guibert 
absent  received  not  one  single  line,  and  Julie  made 
the  reason  for  this  very  clear  in  the  bitter  note 
which  met  his  return  :  "  Do  not  oblige  me  to  say 
why  I  cannot  write  to  you  where  you  are.  I  dare 
not  own  the  reason,  even  to  myself ;  it  is  a  thought, 
a  feeling,  upon  which  I  dare  not  reflect — a  martyr- 
dom horrible  to  me,  which  humiliates  me,  such  as  I 
have  never  before  known."  Next  day  duly  brought 
the  first  of  many  quarrels  between  the  lovers.  Julie 
raged,  Guibert  was  cold  and  disdainful,  and  when 
they  had  parted  she  wrote  this  miserable  note : 
"  Sunday,  midnight.  —  You  have,  then,  forgotten 
and  left  to  her  own  devices  this  fury,  this  fool,  and 
wicked  one !  The  unhappy  creature  passed  her 
day  in  Limbo,  for  she  awaited  an  angel  of  consola- 
tion, and  he  did  not  come.  He  was  undoubtedly 
making  some  celestial  creature  happy,  and  he  him- 
self was  so  intoxicated  with  the  joys  of  heaven  as  to 
exclude  any  possible  remembrance  of  me."  This 
thought  revived  her  anger.  "  If,  in  truth,  he  is 
happy,  I  hope  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  that 


330  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

nothing  will  bring  him  back  to  me,  for  I  am  so 
unjust  as  to  hate  his  happiness,  and  to  hope  that 
repentance  and  remorse  will  pursue  him.  .  .  .  Such 
are  the  desires,  such  is  the  hope  of  the  soul  which 
has  best  loved  him,  and  of  which  the  dearest  wish 
would  be  fulfilled  by  death." 

Quarrels  of  this  sort  are  the  reverse  of  astonish- 
ing. The  one  strange  thing  really  was  that,  amidst 
repeated  shocks,  and  despite  so  many  disappoint- 
ments and  reasons  for  disagreement,  intercourse  of 
any  kind  should  have  been  possible  between  two 
beings  so  radically  unlike.  More  than  once  Julie 
herself  considers  this  problem  with  unspeakable 
anguish :  "  I  cannot  explain  your  hold  upon  me. 
You  are  not  my  friend ;  that  you  can  never  be.  I 
have  no  confidence  in  you.  You  have  done  me 
the  greatest  wrong  which  can  afflict  a  virtuous  soul. 
You  are  depriving  me,  perhaps  for  ever,  of  the  only 
consolation  which  Heaven  had  granted  to  my  remain- 
ing days"  (her  marriage  with  Mora),  "yet  I  think 
of  this,  I  contemplate  it,  and  I  am  drawn  to  you  by  a 
feeling  which  I  loathe,  but  which  has  the  power  of 
a  fate  or  of  a  curse  upon  me."  ..."  My  friend,  did 
we  live  in  the  days  of  magic,  I  should  explain  my 
feeling  for  you  by  saying  that  you  have  cast  over  me 
a  spell  which  has  taken  me  out  of  myself."  Better 
than  she  cares  to  own  even  to  herself,  Julie  knows  the 
secret  of  this  "magic"  which  draws  her  to  the  man 
through  whom  she  has  known  love  in  all  its  fulness. 
"  I  know,  after  all,  that  I  shall  find  no  solace  in 
your  soul,  my  friend  ;  it  is  empty  of  tenderness 
and  affection.  You  have  but  one  means  to  banish 


LAST    DAYS    OF    MORA  331 

my  ills — the  intoxication  which  is  a  worse  remedy 
than  the  worst  of  my  misfortunes."  She  has  drunk 
of  this  cup,  and  her  lips  are  dry  with  thirst 
of  that  wherewith  they  were  quenched.  This 
is  the  secret  tragedy  which  now  begins  to  break 
down  her  strength.  Humiliation  for  her  fall,  the  con- 
stantly recurring  struggle  between  soul  and  body, 
sense  and  reason,  now  torment  and  sap  her  being 
until  she  succumbs  at  no  long  distant  date.  What 
has  been  shown  to  us  as  uneasiness  and  shame 
to-day  became  on  the  morrow  an  incurable  sore 
of  her  soul — the  just  and  terrible  vengeance,  she 
thinks,  of  him  whose  tenderness  she  betrayed. 

After  the  serious  relapse  of  February,  Mora 
remained  in  a  deplorable  state  of  mental  prostra- 
tion and  physical  collapse  ;  nor  did  the  death  of  his 
mother  from  the  same  disease  which  was  consuming 
her  son,  better  his  friends'  hopes  for  his  recovery. 
He  himself,  so  long  deluded  as  to  his  health,  began 
now  for  the  first  time  to  fear  the  worst.  He  spat 
blood  incessantly,  and  was  never  without  fever. 
The  doctors  of  Madrid,  assembled  at  his  bedside, 
had  recourse  to  the  most  violent  remedies — enor- 
mous doses  of  iron  and  quinine  and  constant 
bleedings — the  latter  a  Spanish  custom.  "  In  no 
place  in  the  world  do  they  bleed  their  sick  as  in 
Madrid  ! "  cried  d' Alembert  at  the  news  of  these  sad 
details.  Justly  fearful  of  this  treatment,  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse's  "secretary"  renewed  the 
one  idea  which  recurs  like  a  refrain  in  his  letters  to 
the  Due  de  Villa  Hermosa — to  snatch  the  sick  man 
from  ignorant  hands,  from  the  "dry  and  burning" 


332  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

climate  of  Madrid,  and  to  bring  him  to  Paris,  to  the 
care  of  enlightened  practitioners.  "  I  hastened,"  he 
writes,  "  to  convey  the  news  to  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse,  who  was  waiting  for  it  with  a  fear  and 
terror  which  alarmed  me.  Nowhere  in  the  world 
can  Monsieur  de  Mora  be  more  beloved  than  in 
this  little  corner  of  ours.  .  .  .  Remember  that  the 
mistakes  of  the  Spanish  doctors  have  already  well- 
nigh  cost  Monsieur  de  Mora  his  life.  What  promise 
have  we  that  they  will  be  less  blind  or  do  better 
hereafter?  To  bring  him  back  to  France  would 
be  a  deed  worthy  of  your  friendship  for  him,  and 
you  will  be  able  to  say,  not  only  that  you  have 
assured  the  health  of  your  friend,  but  that  you  have 
saved  his  life.  .  .  .  This  plan  seems  to  me  very 
simple,"  he  again  insists,  "  when  I  think  of  your 
affection  for  the  Marquis  de  Mora,  and  of  the  urgent 
necessity  of  removing  him  from  that  fatal  air,  and 
of  rescuing  him  from  the  doctors  who  have  poisoned 
him." 

It  is  very  probable,  as  Marmontel  says  in  his 
"  Memoires,"  that  this  thought  was  inspired  by 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  and  certainly  none 
could  blame  her  for  it  when  Mora's  friends  were 
united  in  the  belief  that  a  continued  sojourn  in  the 
Castilian  capital  must  entail  his  almost  immediate 
death.  "  I  am  discouraged  by  Mora's  relapse," 
wrote  Galiani  from  Naples.  "  The  air  of  Madrid 
is  too  rough  ;  his  lungs  cannot  survive  it."  This 
opinion  was  supported  by  the  famous  Lorry,  a 
physician  dear  to  the  "  women  and  the  wits "  of 
Paris,  and  so  fashionable  that,  when  he  was  suffering 


HIS    SECRET    DOUBTS  333 

from  the  gout,  patients  came  down  to  consult  him 
at  his  carriage  door.  He  had  already  attended 
Mora  in  Paris,  and  in  letter  after  letter  and  note 
after  note,  half  in  French  and  half  in  Latin,  he 
adjured  him  to  leave  a  pernicious  climate  and  to 
come  promptly  and  place  himself  in  his  skilful 
hands. 

Even  these  pressing  appeals  would  not,  perhaps, 
have  determined  the  dying  man  to  undertake  a 
long  and  tiresome  journey,  had  he  not  been  secretly 
influenced  by  another  motive.  Without  definite  in- 
formation, and  guided  only  by  the  intuitive  instincts 
of  deep  affection,  he  was  vaguely  aware  of  a  change 
in  Julie's  heart.  "  I  remember,"  she  confesses  with 
tears,  "how  I  dared  to  form  the  abominable  inten- 
tion, how  I  resolved  to  bring  death  into  my  friend's 
heart,  to  abandon  him,  to  cease  to  love  him  as  he 
yearned  to  be  loved,  as  he  deserved  to  be  loved." 
Despite  this  intention,  however,  she  continued  to 
postpone  the  cruel  confession,  the  results  of  which 
could  not  fail  to  prove  sadly  detrimental  to  one  in 
Mora's  feeble  condition.  But  her  pen  was  cus- 
tomarily too  free  and  sincere  to  be  able  to  hide  the 
perplexity  of  her  soul,  and  Mora,  surprised  and 
anxious,  vainly  searched  her  troubled  letters  for  the 
warmth  and  enthusiasm  which  once  rewarded  his 
love.  "  He  knew  doubt  for  the  first  time,"  writes 
Julie  again  ;  "  he  passed  from  anxiety  to  fear.  His 
letters  as  well  as  his  heart  were  full  of  sadness." 
Far,  however,  from  discouraging  him,  this  terrible 
suspicion  only  strengthened  his  firm  determination 
to  recover  his  inconstant  friend.  "  This,"  affirms 


334  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  "  was  the  great  reason 
which  precipitated  his  departure  from  Madrid.  He 
risked  his  life,  he  tore  himself  from  a  family  and 
friends  who  adored  him.  He  came,  he  said,  to 
warm  again  a  heart  frozen  by  absence,  and  to  revive 
a  soul  disheartened  by  sadness.  He  relied  upon 
the  warmth  of  his  perfect  tenderness  to  give  him 
strength  for  this  terrible  ordeal." 

On  the  8th  of  May,  Julie  writes  to  Condorcet : 
"  Monsieur  de  Mora  should  have  started  for  Paris 
on  the  fourth  of  this  month  if  he  kept  to  his  inten- 
tion of  the  twenty-fifth  of  last  month.  He  had  then 
a  severe  cold,  and  had  coughed  blood  a  few  days 
before,  so  that  I  am  sure  of  nothing  except  of  his 
will  and  desire  in  the  matter.  ...  I  must  see  him 
to  believe  in  his  return."  When  these  lines  were 
written,  Mora  was  already  five  days  advanced  on 
his  journey  to  see  her.  He  left  Madrid  on  May 
3rd,  accompanied  by  two  servants  and  his  regular 
physician,  Master  Navarro.  A  note,  scribbled  in 
the  hurry  of  leaving,  informed  his  friend  of  the  fact : 
"Madrid,  May  3rd,  1774. — I  take  carriage  to  see 
you."  In  order  to  avoid  the  fatigue  and  jolting  of 
bad  roads,  he  travelled  very  slowly  and  by  short 
stages.  The  first  days  passed  without  accident, 
and  hope  grew  in  his  heart.  "  I  have  that  in  me 
to  make  you  forget  all  your  sufferings  on  my 
account,"  he  wrote  to  Julie  on  the  tenth,  after  a 
week's  travelling  ;  but  the  same  day  saw  his  re- 
maining strength  exhausted  by  renewed  haemor- 
rhage. His  journey  was  now  a  protracted  agony,  but 
he  still  sought  to  push  on.  "  Bordeaux,  May  23rd, 


JULIE'S    REMORSE  335 

1774. — Just  arrived,  and  almost  dead,"  was  his  next 
message. 

It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  dread  and  horror 
which  overwhelmed  Julie's  soul  when  this  news 
reached  Paris.  Her  anguish  was  such  that  she 
could  not  conceal  it  even  from  Guibert.  After  a 
nervous  attack,  which  left  her  almost  lifeless  for  four 
whole  hours,  she  confessed  to  him  :  "  I  have  a  sort 
of  fear  and  terror  which  unsettles  my  reason.  I  await 
Wednesday,  and  it  seems  as  if  death  itself  could 
not  quench  the  pain  with  which  I  look  for  news 
of  the  loss  that  I  fear.  .  .  .  It  is  beyond  my  strength 
to  think  that  he  whom  I  love,  and  who  loved  me, 
will  not  be  able  to  hear  me,  will  no  longer  come  to 
my  aid."  To  Suard,  her  habitual  confidant,  she 
poured  out  her  distress  with  still  greater  freedom  : 
"To-morrow's  news  will  perhaps  release  me  from 
life.  This  thought  is  terrible,  and  never  leaves  me. 
I  can  now  see  Monsieur  de  Mora  only  under  the 
aspect  of  death."  A  second  note  contains  still  clearer 
suggestions  of  suicide,  an  idea  that  henceforth 
possesses  her  brain  :  "  It  seems  to  me  that  I  have 
no  longer  anything  to  care  about.  You  know 
what  that  means,  but  you  do  not  know  all.  No,  I 
can  no  longer  hope  for  calm,  for  peace.  .  .  .  You 
will  forgive  me  that  I  take  small  heed  of  reason 
and  moderation.  If  I  wished  to  dwell  with  my 
fellows,  I  should  have  to  consider  these  virtues,  but 
I  tell  you  that  I  wish  to  remain  but  one  moment 
longer  in  this  sad  country  called  Life.  Do  you 
need  clearer  insight  into  my  thoughts,  into  that 
which  I  shall  do  ?  " 


336  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

The  dark  forebodings  of  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse  were  but  too  well  founded.  In  a  room 
in  a  Bordeaux  inn,  the  heir  of  the  Fuentes,  a  gaunt 
creature  racked  by  suffering,  struggled  with  fierce 
but  vain  energy  against  the  doom  which  denied 
him  the  consolation  of  again  beholding  his  friend. 
For  three  whole  days  Mora  wrestled  against  death, 
fully  conscious  all  the  while.  The  supreme  hour 
seems  to  have  re-awakened  the  faith  of  his  youth, 
for  the  cur6  of  a  neighbouring  parish  certainly 
administered  the  last  sacraments  to  the  dying  man. 
On  May  27th  he  collected  his  failing  strength  to 
trace  these  faltering  lines,  full  of  despair  and  ten- 
derness:  "I  was  on  my  way  to  you,  and  I  must 
die.  What  a  horrible  doom!  .  .  .  But  you  have 
loved  me,  and  the  thought  of  you  still  gives  me 
happiness.  I  die  for  you.  ..." 

The  Marquis  de  Mora  was  buried  on  the  next 
day,  with  a  certain  "pomp,"  in  the  now  vanished 
church  of  Notre  Dame  de  Puy-Paulin.  Two  rings 
were  removed  from  his  finger — the  one  containing 
a  strand  of  Julie's  hair,  the  other  of  plain  gold, 
engraved  with  the  device  "All  passes,  but  love 
endures."  The  Duchesse  de  Villa  Hermosa  sent 
the  first  of  these  to  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse, 
who  afterwards  restored  it  to  her  by  will.  Both  rings 
are  still  among  the  heirlooms  of  this  noble  house. 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  learned  the  news 
on  Thursday,  June  2nd.  "I  should  have  been  too 
fortunate,"  she  writes,  "  could  my  life  have  ended 
on  Wednesday,  June  ist."  Her  first  cry  was  that 
she  had  killed  the  man  who  loved  her,  that  she  had 


SHE    ATTEMPTS    SUICIDE         337 

pronounced  his  "  death-warrant,"  and  nothing  could 
afterwards  wholly  efface  this  dreadful  impression. 
Remorse  added  itself  ruthlessly  to  the  anguish  of 
her  sorrow,  and  her  repentance  was  not  confined  to 
the  simple  fact  of  her  faithlessness.  Of  that  at  least 
he  knew  nothing.  "  My  God,  to  what  am  I  come  ! 
how  have  I  fallen !  But  of  that  he  was  ignorant." 
Her  most  cruel  remorse  was  evoked  by  the  thought 
that  the  unconscious  coldness  of  her  letters  had 
shaken  the  security  and  confidence  of  this  faithful 
heart.  "What  a  frightful  thought!  I  have  dis- 
turbed his  last  days  ;  and  fearing  that  he  had  cause 
to  reproach  me,  he  risked  his  life  for  me.  His  last 
impulse  was  one  of  tenderness  and  love." 

All  she  has  suffered  since  her  earliest  youth 
seems  to  her  of  no  account  compared  to  her  despair 
at  this  thought.  "  A  moment  has  made  thirty-seven 
years  of  suffering  as  nothing!"  Her  unsettled  brain 
could  see  no  escape  from  this  intolerable  torture  ex- 
cept through  death.  That  she  indubitably  purposed 
to  poison  herself  is  proved  by  at  least  a  score  of 
passages  in  her  correspondence  with  Guibert,  who 
was,  indeed,  a  witness  to  the  fact  and  an  actor  in 
the  drama.  Ambiguous  language  leaves  us  in  un- 
certainty as  to  whether  the  drug  was  already  taking 
effect  when  Guibert's  care  recalled  her  to  life  in 
spite  of  herself,  or  whether  he  arrived  at  the  exact 
moment  when  she  was  on  the  point  of  swallowing 
the  fatal  draught,  and  just  in  time  to  snatch  it  from 
her  lips.  In  either  case,  if  she  owed  the  prolonga- 
tion of  her  life  to  Guibert,  she  certainly  felt  no 
gratitude  on  that  account.  On  the  contrary,  she 

Y 


338  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

afterwards  reproached  him  in  the  harshest  and  most 
bitter  terms  for  his  injudicious  zeal. 

So  alarming  a  condition  of  weakness  followed 
Julie's  fever  that  Madame  Necker's  letter  of  sym- 
pathy was  answered  by  d'Alembert  thus :  "  She  is 
unable  personally  to  express  to  you  her  appreciation 
of  your  kindness.  Her  health  is  very  poor,  and 
she  is  in  a  state  of  despondency  which  does  not 
permit  her  to  enjoy  even  the  solace  of  friendship. 
I  regret  upon  my  own  account,"  he  continues,  "  that 
sensitive,  virtuous,  and  high-minded  man.  His 
memory  and  my  sorrow  at  his  loss  will  remain 
graven  upon  my  soul."  D'Alembert  spoke  from 
the  heart;  he  was  second  only  to  Julie  in  his  grief 
at  Mora's  untimely  end,  and  the  pages  in  which  he 
describes  his  own  sorrow  might  be  signed  by  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse.  "  My  deep  feeling  did  not 
at  first  permit  me  to  express  my  personal  grief  at 
the  loss  of  this  friend,  who  must  ever  live  in  my 
memory  as  the  most  perfect  being  that  I  have  ever 
known.  ...  His  mind  always  communicated  to 
mine  an  energy  which  it  will  no  longer  know ; 
but  I  shall  ever  remember  those  priceless  moments 
when  a  soul  so  pure,  so  noble,  so  strong,  and  so 
sweet  loved  to  mingle  with  mine."  Drawn  together 
by  this  common  affliction,  Julie  and  d'Alembert 
were  for  a  while  reunited  in  something  like  the 
touching  harmony  of  their  earlier  intimacy.  With 
tender  gratitude  she  writes  :  "  Monsieur  d'Alembert 
has,  of  his  own  accord,  written  to  Monsieur  de 
Fuentes.  He  was  affected  to  tears  while  reading 
this  letter  to  me,  and  I  was  no  less  moved." 


HER   GRIEF  339 

Julie  de  Lespinasse  had  been  faithless  to  her 
friend  in  his  life ;  no  woman  was  ever  more  true  to 
the  memory  of  her  loved  dead  than  was  she  to  that 
of  the  Marquis  de  Mora.  Conscious  of  guilt  towards 
him,  never  for  a  moment  did  she  permit  this  painful 
thought  to  license  its  consignment  to  the  convenient 
haven  of  oblivion,  but  for  ever  accused  herself 
before  the  partaker  in  her  "  crime."  Compassionate 
friends,  who  attributed  her  sadness  to  simple  regret, 
irritated  her  until  she  was  on  the  point  of  confessing 
the  bitter  truth.  Suard  paid  her  a  visit  of  sympathy, 
and  elicited  for  sole  reply  a  brusque  "  I  am  unworthy 
of  your  sympathy,"  an  answer  of  which  he  could 
never  understand  the  meaning  until  the  moment, 
twenty  years  later,  when  he  read  the  published 
volume  of  her  letters  to  Guibert.  The  "perfect 
and  holy  being"  against  whom  she  had  sinned 
became  an  image  ever  at  hand,  would  she  invoke 
a  more  than  usually  potent  instrument  of  self- 
abasement  ;  and  when  Guibert  travelled  to  Bor- 
deaux a  few  months  after  Mora's  death,  he  went 
strictly  charged  to  collect  every  possible  detail 
of  the  last  painful  scenes,  that  her  sorrow  might 
feed  itself  thereon.  Luis  Pignatelli,  visiting  Paris 
in  the  following  year,  was  summoned  by  her,  and 
compelled  to  relate  every  incident  of  his  brother's 
last  decline,  although  Julie's  sufferings  under  this 
trial  were  so  acute  that  she  was  completely  pros- 
trated at  its  conclusion.  "  His  presence  killed 
me  ;  the  sound  of  his  voice  made  me  shiver  from 
head  to  foot.  Horror  and  affection  consume  me 
by  turns."  This  horror  reached  a  climax  when 


340  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

an  erratic  post  brought  her  two  letters,  delayed 
these  twelve  months.  Such  a  message  from  the 
grave  sounded  ominously  in  morbid  ears,  which 
received  it  as  a  summons  to  a  new  and  fleshless 
meeting. 

This  dwelling  with  melancholy  memories  and 
lugubrious  imaginings  kept  Julie  in  a  state  of 
excitement  bordering  on  delirium,  in  the  more 
exalted  or  depressed  hours  of  which  she  occasion- 
ally seized  the  pen,  once  used  to  trace  her  letters 
to  Mora,  and  confided  her  feelings  to  "this  shade 
which  pursues  her."  "  Do  you  know  the  first  need 
of  my  soul  when  it  has  been  violently  agitated  by 
passion  or  by  sorrow?  It  is  to  write  to  Monsieur 
de  Mora.  I  reanimate  him,  I  bring  him  back  to  life  ; 
my  heart  rests  against  his,  my  soul  is  made  part 
with  his ;  the  warmth  and  vigour  of  my  blood  defy 
death ;  I  see  him  ;  he  lives,  he  breathes  for  me,  he 
hears  me!  My  brain  wanders,  and  is  exalted  to  such 
a  key  that  thought,  no  longer  a  child  of  the  imagina- 
tion, is  made  truth  itself! "  At  times  she  humbly 
invokes  him,  and  supplicates  for  pardon  :  "  Friend, 
if  from  the  realms  of  death  you  hear  me,  be  kind 
to  my  sorrow,  to  my  repentance.  I  am  guilty,  I 
have  sinned,  but  has  not  my  crime  been  expiated 
by  my  despair  ?  I  have  lost  you,  and  I  live.  I  live ! 
Is  that  not  sufficient  punishment  ?  " 

Her  letters  to  Guibert  are  one  long  reminiscence 
of  this  earlier  love.  Between  her  lover  and  herself 
she  incessantly  raises  the  ghost  of  Mora,  compar- 
ing the  living  with  the  dead,  and  always  to  the 
advantage  of  the  latter  —  an  unpleasant  ordeal, 


HER   GRIEF  341 

Guibert's  patience  under  which  was  surely  praise- 
less.  Hardly,  from  time  to  time,  did  he  risk  timid 
remonstrance  :  "  Write  to  me,  my  friend,  even  if 
your  letter  must  be  full  of  Monsieur  de  Mora." 
More  often,  he  accepted  her  as  he  found  her  with 
the  patient  bearing  of  a  man  whose  conscience  is 
not  wholly  clear  in  respect  of  the  things  with  which 
he  is  thus  troubled.  That  his  conscience  was  not 
untroubled  the  sequel  will  show. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

Shaken  health  of  Mademoiselle  cle  Lespinasse — Consequent  ill-temper — 
Guibert's  tactlessness — His  mysterious  absence — Irritation  of  Julie  and 
first  threats  of  a  rupture  between  them — Secret  interview  of  Guibert 
with  Madame  de  Montsauge — Jealous  fury  of  Julie  on  discovering  this 
— Her  withering  letter — Breach  of  several  months'  duration — Reconcilia- 
tion, but  persistent  vexation — Guibert's  literary  ambitions — Wise  counsel 
from  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — The  Constable  is  staged — Julie  con- 
soles him  for  his  disappointment — Guibert's  projected  marriage — Julie 
believes  the  scheme  abandoned — Unexpected  avowal  by  Guibert — His 
fiancte,  Mademoiselle  de  Courcelles — Julie's  despair — Scenes  prior  to 
the  marriage — Departure  of  Guibert — The  broken  ring. 

THE  year  following  Mora's  death  was  for  Julie  de 
Lespinasse  one  of  tempest  and  misfortune.  The 
shock  of  that  loss  affected  a  delicate  constitution 
with  strange  power,  and  her  frail  body  was  racked 
with  terrible  suffering.  Dizziness,  headaches,  per- 
petual insomnia,  often  proof  against  enormous  doses 
of  opium,  nervous  spasms,  and  "convulsions,"  re- 
duced her  vitality  to  the  lowest  ebb.  Her  nerves 
suffered  commensurately.  Everything  disturbed 
and  wounded  her,  and  aroused  her  suspicions; 
never  was  even  she  so  irritable  and  moody. 
Guibert's  actions,  words,  and  even  his  silence, 
were  suspect  to  a  jealousy  which  now  amounted 
to  disease,  and  needed  but  the  slightest  provocation 
to  fall  into  insinuations,  reproaches,  and  often  the 
tears  of  anger,  abruptly  succeeded  by  transports 
of  tenderness,  and  the  most  passionate  effusions. 
"  All  these  contradictions,  these  conflicting  emo- 


GUIBERTS   TACTLESSNESS       343 

tions,  are  real,  and  are  to  be  explained  by  these 
words  :  I  love  you."  This  chance  expression  of 
her  pen  exactly  summarises  this  period  of  her 
life. 

Julie's  temper  was  then  uncertain,  yet  her 
complaints  were  not  always  unreasonable.  Irre- 
sistible impulse  had  absolutely  and  irretrievably 
given  her  over  to  a  man  who,  alike  in  his  qualities 
and  his  defects,  was  an  eminently  unsuitable  mate 
for  one  of  her  impressionable  and  exclusive  nature. 
Guibert,  not  devoid  of  fine  ambitions,  was  sin- 
cerely convinced  that  heaven  had  intended  him 
to  regenerate  his  country.  Love,  after  the  first 
moment  of  excitement,  was  therefore  no  more  than 
a  secondary  preoccupation — a  superior  enjoyment, 
a  delicate  satisfaction,  to  which,  in  simple  justice, 
he  cannot  and  must  not  sacrifice  the  essential. 
His  affection  for  Julie,  and  his  admiration  for  this 
incomparable  mistress,  were  no  less  real  than  was 
his  pride  in  such  a  conquest,  but  he  could  never 
hold  her  entitled  to  a  first  claim  upon  his  time. 
Thus  he  would  often  avoid  her,  evade  a  meeting, 
let  several  days  pass  without  a  visit,  and  neglect 
to  write  to  her  when  absent,  sometimes  for  a  whole 
week,  be  frankly  preoccupied  in  her  presence,  or 
follow  the  thread  of  his  own  thought  without  pay- 
ing any  attention  to  her.  Sometimes,  too,  he  was 
inconceivably  heedless,  as  when  he  omitted  to  seal 
his  letters  to  her,  or  mislaid  hers  unread.  That 
every  such  offence  was  noted  needs  no  telling,  nor 
yet  that  each  left  its  scar ;  yet  they  would  readily 
have  won  pardon  as  licensed  by  a  genius  superior 


344  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

to  the  petty  demands  of  the  heart.  "  You  know 
well,"  Julie  once  said  to  him  with  a  sort  of  pride, 
"  that  sensibility  is  the  portion  of  mediocrity,  and 
your  character  commands  you  to  be  great.  Your 
talents  condemn  you  to  celebrity,  and  the  sweet  and 
homely  life  of  tenderness  and  feeling  is  not  for  you. 
Pleasure,  but  very  little  glory,  is  attached  to  the 
living  for  one  end  alone."  One  sin  at  all  times, 
and  this  latterly  more  than  ever  before,  exasperated 
Julie  almost  to  madness — the  thought  of  any  faith- 
lessness, be  it  never  so  transient  and  platonic. 
Guibert,  meanwhile,  was  notoriously  susceptible  to 
feminine  society ;  he  hungered  for  the  praise  of 
women,  and  was  a  ready  victim  to  their  arts. 
Madame  de  Montsauge,  also,  he  always  held  in 
affection,  and  at  no  time  really  broke  off  at  least 
friendly  relations  with  her.  Such  conduct  was  not 
easily  excused  in  the  eyes  of  a  woman  like  Julie, 
and  the  clumsiness  with  which  Guibert  played  his 
part  was  frequently  incredible — endeavouring,  as  he 
does,  now  to  conceal  his  visits  to  his  old  mistress, 
now  frankly  to  discuss  her  with  Julie  in  terms  that 
could  not  fail  to  vex  her.  But  his  supreme  feat 
in  this  direction  was  reserved  to  the  day  when  he 
informed  her  that  Madame  de  Montsauge  had 
unexpectedly  come  to  see  him,  and  arrived  as  he 
was  in  act  to  seal  an  envelope  addressed  to  her- 
self. "Thereupon  we  talked  together  for  a  long 
time.  She  complained  bitterly  of  my  desertion  of 
her,  of  my  frivolity,  and  of  the  new  connections  that 
I  continually  form  at  her  expense.  She  spoke  of 
ours  thus,  for  she  has  heard  that  I  see  you  every 


GUIBERT'S    TACTLESSNESS       345 

day,  and  that  I  pass  all  my  evenings  with  you.  She 
did  not  thus  reproach  me  from  love  or  jealousy,  but 
she  had  counted  upon  my  friendship  ;  her  heart's 
peace  was  founded  upon  it  ;  in  it  she  saw  happiness 
for  the  rest  of  her  life  ;  and  she  now  feels  that  I  am 
slipping  away  from  her.  .  .  .  She  was  very  tender, 
very  affectionate,  and  very  interesting,  and  neither 
on  her  part  nor  on  mine  was  there  the  slightest 
allusion  to  our  past  relations.  .  .  .  She  was  full 
of  sense,  of  philosophy,  and  of  intelligence.  I 
wish  that  you  might  have  heard  her ! "  Guibert's 
finishing  touch  was  this  little  picture  of  his  re- 
lations with  Julie  :  "  My  answers  to  her  questions 
about  you  were  such  as  you  would  have  dictated 
yourself.  I  told  her  that  I  had  the  greatest  pos- 
sible friendship  for  you,  that  no  one  could  see 
you  without  the  greatest  interest,  and  that  this 
interest  was  much  augmented  by  the  interesting 
conversation  always  heard  at  your  house.  In  fact, 
my  friend,  you  would  have  heard  me  with  perfect 
satisfaction." 

These  passages  are  in  place,  because  they  accen- 
tuate a  trait  very  characteristic  of  Guibert — that  self- 
confidence,  and  that  species  of  frank  conceit,  which 
are  an  almost  inevitable  result  of  social  success.  He 
could  scarcely  have  hurt  Julie's  pride,  or  wounded 
her  more,  had  he  laid  himself  out  for  the  task ;  and 
we  need  not  be  surprised  that  scenes  and  storms 
were  the  constant  result  of  such  crassness,  any 
more  than  we  should  be  astonished  by  the  im- 
petuous reconciliations  which  almost  invariably  fol- 
lowed, but  could  not  in  the  end  spare  her  the  most 


346  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

heart-rending  anguish.  In  the  middle  of  July, 
Guibert  surreptitiously  left  Paris.  Julie,  much  dis- 
turbed by  this  sudden  departure,  and  the  mystery 
surrounding  it,  at  once  accused  him  of  desiring  "to 
keep  your  journey  a  secret  from  me.  If  you  went 
with  an  honest  purpose,  why  should  you  fear  to  tell 
me  of  it  ?  And  if  this  journey  is  an  offence  against 
me,  why  do  you  take  it  ?  You  have  never  really 
confided  in  me.  ...  I  do  not  know  where  you 
are ;  I  am  ignorant  of  what  you  are  doing."  On 
this  occasion,  Guibert  had,  as  it  happens,  good 
cause  for  silence,  for  we  shall  shortly  find  that  his 
journey  was  concerned  with  a  half-formed  project 
of  marriage.  Embarrassed  by  the  part  that  he 
was  playing,  and  annoyed  by  Julie's  reproaches,  he 
replied  only  by  a  brief  note,  the  ironical  coldness 
of  which  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  construed 
as,  if  not  a  dismissal,  at  least  a  denial  of  his  former 
vows. 

Guibert  was  evidently  in  the  wrong  on  this 
occasion,  yet  posterity  will  probably  incline  to  find 
excuses  for  an  unkindness  which  moved  Julie  to 
this  wonderfully  eloquent  letter,  in  which  disap- 
pointed love,  wounded  pride,  and  indignant  rage 
clothe  themselves  in  language  the  fervour  of  which 
a  hundred  years  have  not  availed  to  cool :  "  Never 
in  my  life,  I  believe,  have  I  received  a  more  pain- 
ful, a  more  blasting  impression,  than  that  which 
your  letter  has  made  upon  me.  Nevertheless,  and 
to  be  equally  truthful,  I  must  needs  allow  that  the 
kind  of  injury  which  you  have  done  me  here  is 
worthy  of  no  interest  whatever,  because  it  is  my 


JULIE'S    IRRITATION  347 

vanity  which  has  suffered,  and  in  a  manner  entirely 
new  to  me.  I  have  felt  humiliated  and  crushed 
that  I  should  have  given  to  any  one  the  appalling 
right  to  say  such  things  to  me !  .  .  .  My  heart,  my 
vanity,  everything  which  animates  me,  makes  me 
feel,  think,  or  breathe, — the  whole  of  me,  in  a  word, — 
is  revolted,  wounded,  and  for  ever  estranged.  You 
have  given  me  sufficient  strength,  not  to  bear  my 
misery — that  seems  greater  and  more  overwhelming 
than  ever ! — but  to  ensure  me  from  ever  again  being 
tormented  or  unhappy  because  of  you.  Judge,  then, 
both  of  the  excess  of  my  crime  and  of  the  great- 
ness of  my  loss ! "  At  this  point,  and  for  the  first 
time,  Julie  speaks  of  a  possible  final  breach  between 
them.  "If  your  letter  expresses  what  you  really 
think  and  feel  of  me,  believe,  at  least,  that  I  shall 
not  fall  so  low  as  to  justify  myself,  or  to  ask  for 
grace.  .  .  .  Here,  therefore,  we  come  to  an  end. 
Be  henceforth  with  me  as  you  can  or  as  you  will. 
For  me  in  future,  if  future  I  have,  I  shall  be  with 
you  as  I  should  always  have  been  ;  and  were  it  not 
for  the  remorse  which  you  leave  in  my  soul,  I 
should  hope  to  forget  you.  .  .  .  Why,  then,  need  I 
complain  ?  Does  not  the  sick  man  who  is  doomed 
still  look  forward  to  the  coming  of  the  doctor ;  still 
raise  his  eyes  to  his,  if  haply  he  may  there  find 
hope  ?  The  last  impulse  of  pain  is  a  groan ;  the 
last  breath  of  the  soul  is  a  cry  !  " 

Despite  the  suppressed  emotion  which  escapes  in 
these  last  lines,  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  for  a 
while  maintained  a  firm  stand  against  the  repent- 
ance of  the  culprit.  "  Please  to  have  decency 


348  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

enough  to  cease  persecuting  me,"  she  writes,  after 
his  return.  "  I  have  but  one  wish,  one  need — never 
again  to  see  you  on  any  other  than  the  common 
social  basis.  .  .  .  Leave  me ;  count  upon  me  no 
longer.  If  I  can  calm  myself,  I  shall  live ;  but  if 
you  persist,  you  will  soon  have  to  reproach  your- 
self with  having  given  me  the  strength  of  despair. 
Spare  me  the  pain  and  embarrassment  of  having 
to  deny  you  my  door  during  the  hours  when  I  am 
alone."  After  eight  days  of  this  stoical  firmness 
Guibert  forced  her  door,  and  she  fell  into  his  arms. 
"  What  a  terrible  project  I  had  formed  !  I  was  never 
to  see  you  again — so  possible  an  idea!  You  well 
know  that  the  hours  in  which  I  hate  you  are  those 
when  my  love  for  you  has  become  a  passion  out- 
running all  reason." 

Some  weeks  later,  Guibert,  alleging  causes  that 
jealousy  itself  must  credit,  announced  that  he  was 
about  to  visit  the  family  estates,  and  that  father 
and  mother  of  whom  he  was  the  pride  and  joy. 
Never  yet  had  he  been  more  attentive,  more  affec- 
tionate, and  more  tender  than  on  the  eve  of  this 
journey.  "  I  am  pursued  by  sad  thoughts,  and 
almost  every  one  concerns  you,"  he  wrote  to  Julie. 
"  You  are  not  happy,  and  your  health  is  failing ;  you 
are  attached  to  life  only  by  a  feeling  to  which  you 
have  never  dared  entirely  to  yield  yourself,  of  which 
remorse  stifles  a  part,  and  which  absence  will  per- 
haps annihilate.  I  tremble  to  leave  you  in  this 
condition,  but  my  father  awaits  me,  and  I  ought  to 
have  set  out  the  week  before  last.  .  .  .  How  neces- 
sary will  your  letters  be  to  me  !  Will  mine  be 


THREATENED   RUPTURE          349 

equally  so  to  you  ?  I  shall  make  them  as  frequent 
as  though  they  were,  but  how  unsatisfactorily  will 
this  occupation  bridge  the  horrible  void  of  your 
lost  society  and  conversation,  and  our  daily  meet- 
ings, of  which  the  habit  has  grown  so  sweet  to 
me.  This  interest,  with  my  work,  would  suffice  to 
fill  my  life,  for  near  you  ambition  vanishes.  .  .  . 
Never  has  my  being  been  so  strongly  drawn  to 
another.  More  violent  and  more  tumultuous  emo- 
tions I  have  known,  never  feelings  so  sweet  as 
these,  nor  of  a  kind  upon  which  I  have  so  built  my 
happiness."  A  like  sentimental  note  pervades  his 
first  letters  after  leaving  her.  "The  thought  of 
you  is  constantly  with  me  ;  it  will  follow  me  to- 
morrow, to-morrow's  morrow,  and  so  through  every 
day.  Guess  what  has  been  my  first  reading  ?  Three 
or  four  of  your  letters,  ensconced  in  my  pocket-book, 
have  escaped  your  barbarous  mistrust !  I  have 
kept  them  without  scruple,  for — 

'  Whoso  suspicion  hath,  treason  invites.' 

Good-bye,  my  friend  ;  I  shall  write  from  Rocham- 
beau,  from  Chanteloup,  from  everywhere,  for  herein 
lie  my  consolation,  my  pleasure,  and  my  need.  Be 
you  also  punctual  for  like  cause." 

Neither  this  letter  nor  those  which  followed  it 
were  answered,  and  Guibert's  vexation  at  this  was 
not  abated  when,  ten  days  later,  he  found  at  Bor- 
deaux a  "cold,  dry  note,"  in  the  tone  one  would 
use  "  to  a  man  with  whom  it  was  desired  to  sever 
all  connections."  This  note  dwelt  upon  no  specific 
grievance,  but  that  it  contained  disquieting  allusions 


350  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

and  hard  epithets,  very  disturbing  to  Guibert,  clearly 
appears  from  his  reply:  "  I  am  neither  so  false  nor 
so  dishonest  as  you  are  pleased  to  consider  me.  I 
have  felt  drawn  to  you,  but  at  the  same  time  I  have 
never  concealed  from  you  the  attachment  which  still 
existed  between  me  and  another.  My  struggles, 
my  regret,  and  my  anguish  I  never  sought  to  veil 
from  your  eyes,  and  this  unfortunate  position  has 
often  driven  me  to  reserves — lies,  if  you  will  so  to 
call  them,  dictated  entirely  by  delicacy.  .  .  .  But 
that  which  I  have  so  often  and  so  sadly  foreseen 
has  now  arrived :  you  have  come  to  hate  me." 
Guibert's  conscience  palpably  suspects  the  cause  of 
this  bitter  language,  and  he  was  not  long  allowed 
to  suppose  that  his  fears  were  baseless.  An  hour 
after  his  departure,  Julie  learned,  by  means  never 
disclosed,  that  while  she  sat  alone  in  expectation 
of  his  farewell  call,  her  lover  was  passing  his 
evening  with  Madame  de  Montsauge.  Having 
unmasked  the  lie  with  which  he  had  been  fain  to 
cover  such  suspicious  conduct,  she  resumes  :  "  Thus 
I  saw,  and  I  believed,  everything  which  is  most 
painful  to  me.  I  had  been  deceived ;  you  were 
guilty ;  at  that  very  moment,  you  were  abusing 
my  affection !  .  .  .  The  thought  revolted  my  soul. 
In  the  depths  of  my  sorrow,  I  could  no  longer  love 
you!"  In  her  first  indignation  at  this  discovery, 
she  had  vowed  to  discontinue  all  intercourse  with 
the  traitor,  even  to  leave  his  letters  unopened  ;  and 
for  ten  days  her  resolve  had  held.  Cost  what  it 
might,  she  could  now  remain  silent  no  longer.  She 
demanded  definite  explanations  and  a  full  confession. 


GUIBERTS    DEFENCE  351 

Guibert's  reply  to  this  ultimatum  was  as  frank  and 
sincere  as  it  was  injudicious  and  ill-adapted  to  soothe 
a  wronged  heart.  "  How  may  I  express  my  pain 
at  the  manner  in  which  I  have  wronged  you,  for 
wronged  you  I  have,  and  I  do  not  attempt  to  justify 
myself.  I  concealed  from  you  the  fact  that  Madame 
de  Montsauge  left  Paris  on  Saturday  evening  for 
La  Breteche,  that  I  had  seen  her,  and  that  I  was 
with  her  until  she  set  out  at  nine  o'clock.  Not 
wishing,  as  you  divined,  to  come  to  you  from  her,  I 
went  home.  We  separated  with  much  emotion  on 
her  part ;  there  were  even  a  few  tears  in  my  eyes. 
She  said  that  this  was  only  friendship,  but  that  it 
was  a  warm  and  tender  friendship  which  would 
suffer  cruelly  did  I  forget  her.  ...  I  spent  a  part 
of  the  night  in  examining  myself,  and  in  failing  to 
understand  myself:  I  was  not  cured  of  my  love 
for  her,  but  you  were  still  very  dear  to  me.  .  .  . 
My  heart  is  a  perfect  labyrinth,  a  maze!"  His 
"lies,"  he  confusedly  protests,  are  "mere  reserva- 
tions"— and  reservations  so  painful  that  "my  face 
and  heart  alike  make  reparation  to  truth  in  the  very 
utterance  of  them."  His  conclusion,  more  truthful 
than  full  of  tact,  wounded  Julie's  sensitiveness  to  the 
quick.  "  But,  good  Heavens  !  does  not  the  similarity 
between  your  position  and  mine  excite  your  indul- 
gence ?  You  love  me,  but  your  heart  is  full  of 
Monsieur  de  Mora,  and  should  I  suggest  that  you 
surrender  that  memory  of  your  dead,  your  heart 
were  rent  in  twain.  My  friend,  we  be  strange 
exemplars  of  the  activity  of  human  hearts  !  " 

Guibert  need  scarcely  have  been  surprised  that 


352  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

such  an  exculpation  was  answered  by  a  withering 
announcement  of  irremediable  rupture  :  "How  have 
I  been  deluded,  and  driven  beyond  the  bounds 
of  virtue,  and  even  of  personal  interest !  .  .  .  And 
who,  good  gods  !  was  the  object  of  this  sacrifice  ?  A 
man  who  has  never  belonged  to  me,  and  who  is  so 
cruel  and  dishonest  as  to  tell  me  that  he  has  made 
me  his  victim  without  loving  me !  After  having 
denied  the  truth,  after  having  deceived  me  a  thou- 
sand times,  he  takes  his  barbarous  pleasure  in  pro- 
claiming a  truth  which  debases  me  and  drives  me  to 
despair.  Is  there  no  vengeance  in  heaven  ?  Must 
one  only  hate  and  die?"  Mademoiselle  de  Les- 
pinasse  forsakes  all  restraints  at  last.  Her  letter 
passes  from  fiery  invective  to  bitterest  irony,  and  all 
in  the  same  torrential  strain  :  "  You  leave  me  the 
sole  resource  of  despair,  and  for  this  kindness  you  tell 
me  that  I  owe  you  indulgence^  boast  of  the  delicacy 
of  the  feeling  in  which  you  deceived  me,  and  lied 
to  me  from  morning  to  night.  Truly  this  is  a  fair 
cruelty — to  suffer  a  justification  which  is  but  the  last 
insult !  This  passion  which  you  claim  draws  you  so 
strongly  towards  one  who  reciprocates  it  so  little 
— this  great,  this  involuntary  passion,  nevertheless 
allowed  you  positively  to  assure  another  that  you 
were  no  longer  in  love  with  this  woman,  and 
that  your  heart  was  so  absolutely  free  that  your 
one  desire  was  marriage.  These  things  agree 
together ! "  There  is  no  need  to  transcribe  this 
raging  philippic  at  length.  It  concludes  with  the 
announcement  that  there  shall  be  no  retreat :  "  Lose 
this  letter  according  to  your  amiable  habit,  or — pray 


FINAL   RUPTURE  353 

take  your  preference  ! — keep  it  to  read  to  this  person 
who  is  so  dear  to  you,  and  with  whom  you  behave 
in  so  delicate  a  manner.  In  a  word,  do  with  it  as 
you  will.  I  no  longer  fear  anything  from  a  man  who 
was  dangerous  to  me  only  so  long  as  I  believed  him 
virtuous  and  capable  of  feeling.  Farewell!  If  one 
day  I  may  cost  you  an  hour  of  regret,  or  acquaint- 
ance with  remorse — these  shall  avenge  me." 

Still  more  than  this  stormy  diatribe,  later  letters 
forebode  that  the  final  breach  has  come.  Two 
weeks  of  silence  and  reflection  restored  her  mental 
balance,  and  Julie  was  better  capable  of  a  cool  and 
composed  judgment.  "  Reflection  has  pulled  me 
together.  I  have  judged  both  of  us,  but  I  have  con- 
demned myself  alone."  She  has  expected  "  the 
impossible  "  in  claiming  to  hold  a  young  and  fasci- 
nating man  ;  and  realising  the  mad  arrogance  and 
blindness  of  that  hope,  a  final  effort  to  free  her  heart 
from  this  insane  love  has,  she  believes,  succeeded. 
"  I  do  not  mean  that  I  shall  ever  cease  to  feel  for 
you  the  greatest  friendship,  or  to  take  the  greatest 
interest  in  your  welfare.  But  my  feeling  will  be 
reasonable  and  moderate,  and  your  reciprocating 
it,  if  you  will,  may  still  yield  me  some  moments  of 
happiness,  yet  never  trouble  or  torment  my  soul." 
While  Julie's  hand  halted  on  these  lines,  her  will  stood 
firm,  and  she  fully  meant  each  word  ;  and  it  were 
more  than  human  not  to  feel  the  communication  of 
her  emotion  in  this  touching  and  dignified  farewell  to 
her  dream  of  happiness.  "  So  I  pardon  each  your 
offence,  and  abjure,  with  all  the  strength  and  reason 
still  left  in  me,  everything  that  I  have  written  under 


354  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

stress  of  my  despair.  To-day,  I  lay  in  your  hands 
my  profession  of  faith  :  my  promise  to  you,  my 
pledge  to  myself,  that  never  again  will  I  exact  or 
expect  anything  of  you.  Hold  me  yet  in  your  friend- 
ship, if  you  may  ;  I  will  enjoy  it  peacefully  and  grate- 
fully. If  you  do  not  think  me  worthy  of  it,  I  shall 
sorrow,  but  I  will  not  think  you  unjust.  Farewell, 
my  friend.  I  call  you  so  in  simple  friendship,  but  the 
name  is  no  whit  less  dear  since  it  can  now  no  longer 
trouble  my  heart  which  breathes  it." 

These  are  brave  words,  but  that  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse  suffered  acutely  as  she  used  them 
is  clearly  to  be  seen  from  her  letters  to  Condorcet : 
"  When  hearts  are  weary  to  the  point  of  crying 
What  use  ?  and  have  not  so  much  as  a  wish  to 
change  this  frame  of  mind  ;  when,  without  sufficient 
activity  of  despair  to  seek  death,  a  woman  realises 
each  evening  how  fair  would  be  the  thought  that 
to-night's  sleep  should  be  the  end  ; — then  indeed 
she  resigns  the  right  to  judge  anything ;  she  but 
cumbers  the  earth,  my  friend."  Sad  unto  death 
she  was  at  this  time,  but  her  resolve  held  fast, 
despite  frequent  struggles  with  self  and  many  an 
access  of  the  deepest  emotion.  But  a  slight  in- 
disposition that  kept  Guibert  to  his  bed  for  a  few 
days  could  still  move  her  deeply.  "  You  are  ill 
and  have  fever.  My  friend,  this  awakes,  not  my 
interest,  but  my  fear !  I  seem  to  bring  misfortune 
to  all  whom  I  love."  When,  also,  he  declined  to 
accept  his  dismissal,  or  made  use  of  expressions 
more  than  usually  tender,  she  was  thrown  back  into 
cruel  perplexities  :  "  Direct  me  !  be  my  guide  !  I  no 


RELAPSE  355 

longer  dare  say  '  I  love  you, '  for  I  am  utterly  at 
sea.  Judge  for  me,  then — in  this  trouble  of  my 
soul,  you  know  me  better  than  I  know  myself." 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  was  thus  seemingly 
between  two  moods  when  the  news  of  Guibert's 
imminent  return  reached  her.  "  I  dare  not  desire 
your  return,"  she  wrote,  "but  I  count  the  days  of 
your  absence."  Yet,  unfeignedly  glad  of  his  return 
as  she  was,  her  joy  on  seeing  him  again  did  not 
weaken  her  determination.  She  received  him  no 
less  often  than  before,  and  counted  the  hours  to  his 
visits  with  all  the  old  fire,  but  their  intercourse  was 
that  of  mere  friendship.  Guibert,  astonished  and 
disappointed,  endeavoured  to  obtain  more  of  her, 
but  in  vain.  "  Is  love,  then,  to  be  ever  held  a 
crime  ?  Can  you  never  surrender  wholly  ?  must 
you  spend  your  life  in  self-torture  ?  .  .  .  Do  you 
not  know  that  love  is  like  the  fire,  which  purifies 
everything,  and  dishonour  has  place  there  only 
where  no  love  is."  Vain  rhetoric ;  for  Julie  had 
never  fallen  to  reason,  nor  ever  could.  Un- 
fortunately for  her,  this  was  but  one,  and  that  not 
the  best,  of  his  weapons.  Her  trial  came  when 
winning  accents,  an  eloquence  to  charm  as  magic, 
and  a  personality  almost  magically  attractive,  were 
arrayed  against  her.  In  truth,  however,  the  real 
struggle  lay  with  herself — the  consuming  passion  in 
her  own  veins,  very  poison  to  destroy  the  soul's 
peace.  Thus  one  weak  hour  nullified  the  resistance 
of  a  month,  and  there  was  written,  to  come  down  to 
us,  a  cryptogram  that  was  surely  no  stern  test  of  the 
recipient's  ingenuity.  "Is..,.  n..t...  y..  t,., 


356  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

I    1 ...  y  ....  n  ..    t...y..i m. 

y w...    a    f t...    I     n.... 

h....   t.    k...    a....     T...     m.,  t...,    m. 

f ,  t  .  .  .    y  .  .   1.  .  .   m  .!"     (I   shall  not  tell 

you  that  I  love  you,  nor  that  you  intoxicated  me 
yesterday  with  a  feeling  that  I  never  hoped  to 
know  again.  Tell  me,  then,  my  friend,  that  you 
love  me  !) 

From  this  day  was  dated  a  new  phase.  Hence- 
forward, crushed  by  the  shame  of  relapse,  and  the 
consciousness  of  what  she  calls  her  "  cowardice," 
Julie  indulged  herself  with  no  more  insulting  words 
or  cutting  recriminations.  Jealousy  of  Madame 
de  Montsauge  remained  her  perpetual  torment,  but 
where  she  reproached  and  quarrelled  before,  she 
now  took  refuge  in  a  resignation  sometimes  ironical 
and  always  very  sad.  In  such  mood  she  communi- 
cated to  her  volatile  friend  her  knowledge  of  his 
week's  programme  :  "Give  your  mind  to  this,  and 
listen  : — Monday,  dinner  with  Monsieur  de  Vaines 
and  supper  with  Madame  de  Montsauge  ;  Tuesday, 
dinner  at  Board  of  Control  and  supper  with 
Madame  de  Montsauge  ;  Wednesday,  dinner  with 
Madame  GeofTrin  and  supper  with  Madame  de  M.  ; 
Thursday,  dinner  with  Count  de  Crillon  and  supper 
with  Madame  de  M.  ;  Friday,  dinner  with  Madame 
de  Chatillon  and  supper  with  Madame  de  M.  ; 
Saturday,  dinner  with  Madame  de  M.,  to  Versailles 
after  dinner,  and  return  on  Sunday  in  time  to 
spend  the  evening  with  me."  At  long  intervals 
the  constraint  proved  too  much  for  her  feelings, 
but  no  sooner  had  a  word  of  revolt  found  utterance 


STORM    AND   CALM  357 

than  it  was  immediately  repressed  :  "  You  are 
busier  than  Providence,  for  you  are  responsible 
for  the  happiness  of  two  people  ;  first,  Madame  de 
Montsauge  must  be  satisfied,  then  I — but  a  long 
way  behind,  as  is  reasonable.  Should  not  I  say, 
then,  with  the  Canaanitish  woman — I  will  content 
me  with  the  crumbs  which  fall  from  my  master's 
table !  Good  friend,  this  conduct,  this  tone  of  the 
Gospels,  is  of  a  humility  to  satisfy  a  Christian  alone. 
But  I  am  no  aspirant  to  Heaven.  I  am  not  con- 
tent to  be  nourished,  in  this  life,  by  crumbs  from 
any  table!  Good-bye!  If  I  see  you,  I  shall  be 
overjoyed  ;  if  you  do  not  come,  I  shall  say,  He 
fares  better  than  with  me.  A  thought  so  sweet 
will  surely  prove  all  balm ! " 

Such  violent  disputes  and  almost  equally  agitat- 
ing reconciliations  as  those  here  outlined  were  after 
all  mere  sad  and  too  frequent  episodes  in  the 
intercourse  of  this  ill-assorted  couple.  Calm  lies 
between  two  storms,  and  calmer  moments  saw  this 
pair — intellectualists  both,  and  equally  admirers  of 
the  beautiful — turn  readily  to  higher  questions  and 
nobler  and  more  worthy  occupations,  in  which 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  her  soul  no  longer 
clouded  by  passion,  proved  again  the  wise  and 
useful  friend,  the  shrewd,  keen  counsellor  whom 
all  admired.  In  this  part  and  in  this  case  litera- 
ture was  the  claimant  for  her  charming  gifts  of 
taste,  tact,  and  good  sense,  and  she  would  doubt- 
less have  rendered  him  most  precious  service  but 
for  the  pride,  self-satisfaction,  and  love  of  flattery 
which  too  often  annulled  the  efforts  of  her  clear- 


358  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

sighted  affection.  Guibert,  in  justice,  never  took 
her  frankness  amiss,  but  asked  for,  and  frequently 
insisted  upon  having,  her  advice  :  "  I  love  to  have 
you  judge  me,"  he  says.  "You  can  be  critical  and 
yet  not  wound ;  your  friendship  always  rubs  the 
edge  of  the  vase  with  honey."  Yet  ready  as  he 
was  to  hear  advice,  never  once  did  he  think  of  fol- 
lowing it — conduct  that  evokes  our  ready  sympathy 
when  Julie  breaks  out:  "  1  do  not  know  why  I  tell 
you  all  this,  for  surely  I  should  be  discouraged  by  a 
man  who  so  listens  to  what  he  has  not  the  remotest 
intention  of  putting  into  practice."  Guibert's  im- 
possible self-conceit  must,  none  the  less,  be  granted 
some  indulgence,  for  few  brains  can  resist  such 
overwhelming  praise  as  his  contemporaries  united 
to  heap  upon  him.  At  this  time  he  had  temporarily 
exchanged  his  studies  in  the  art  of  war  for  essays  in 
the  new  field  of  literature.  Periods  of  peace  do  not 
favour  an  embryo  Turenne.  Bethinking  himself 
that  he  would  therefore  become  a  new  Corneille, 
he  was  fully  convinced  of  success  when  his  reading 
of  his  first  tragedy,  "The  Constable  of  Bourbon," 
in  all  the  fashionable  salons  aroused  transports  of 
enthusiasm.  Men  were  electrified,  and  applauded 
with  all  their  strength  ;  women  swooned  ;  Princes 
of  the  Blood  Royal,  the  Due  d'Orl&ms  and  Prince 
de  Conde\  solicited  a  private  hearing ;  the  Queen 
herself  commanded  him  to  Versailles,  and  declared 
herself  enraptured  by  the  reading.  The  extra- 
ordinary art  and  music  of  his  voice  undoubtedly 
counted  for  something  in  this  success,  yet  Vol- 
taire fell  under  its  charm  in  far  away  Ferney,  pro- 


GUIBERT   AS   AUTHOR  359 

nounced  it  equally  a  masterpiece,  a  piece  "spark- 
ling with  beautiful  lines,"  and  "  full  of  genius."  The 
"  sublime  writer,"  not  for  a  moment  inclined  to  sleep 
upon  his  bed  of  laurels,  immediately  undertook 
another  tragedy,  of  which  he  expected  "  marvels." 
"  I  am  beginning  the  second  act  of  '  The  Gracchi,' 
and  am  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  first,"  he  modestly 
announced  to  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse.  "  I  am 
conscious  of  a  stupendous  wealth  of  ideas  upon  this 
subject  ;  many,  indeed,  will  make  your  brain  reel." 

In  this  concert  of  exaggerated  praise  Julie  almost 
alone  spoke  her  mind  freely,  and  told  him  the  truth. 
Her  keen  judgment  went  straight  to  the  weak  point 
in  his  work — the  irremediable  defect  that  mars  the 
qualities  of  real  eloquence  and  elevation  undeniable 
in  all  Guibert's  writings.  Kindly  but  firmly  she 
reproved  his  lack  of  correct  form,  his  inaccuracy  in 
expression,  and  the  careless  verse,  which  give  his 
pompous  tirades  an  off-hand,  slovenly,  and  un- 
finished air.  "  Tell  me,"  ran  a  letter,  "whether  you 
are  accustoming  yourself  to  making  haste  slowly, 
and  have  persuaded  yourself  to  follow  Racine,  who 
fashioned  verses  with  difficulty.  My  friend,  you  are 
to  have  the  pleasure  of  reading — of  re-reading  every 
morning — a  scene  in  this  divine  music  ;  you  will  then 
take  a  walk,  and  as  you  walk  you  will  compose  your 
verses.  Your  natural  talent  for  deep  thought  and 
feeling  will  ensure  that  these  verses  are  beautiful." 
These  criticisms  Guibert  accepted  with  good  grace, 
and  every  appearance  of  accepting  their  counsel. 
"  You  ought  to  be  much  pleased  with  me.  I  some- 
times compose  no  more  than  four  verses  a  day,  for  I 


360  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

am  becoming  very  particular.  All  will  be  well ; 
this  is  a  superb  subject !  "  Habit,  however,  soon 
resumed  the  upper  hand,  and  Julie  was  again 
concerned  to  see  his  pen  rushing  along  "  post- 
haste." Satisfied  of  his  own  greatness,  Guibert 
once  indulged  in  "  small  and  spiteful  criticisms"  of 
La  Fontaine.  "  My  friend,"  she  returned  sharply, 
"  be  severe  with  yourself  and  for  yourself,  and  show 
some  indulgence  toward  what  is  good.  Above  all, 
forgive  me  the  truth  in  this  remark ! " 

In  the  August  of  1775,  during  the  festivities 
attending  Madame  Clotilde's  marriage,  Marie 
Antoinette  commanded  a  performance  of  The 
Constable  at  the  Chateau  de  Versailles.  Among 
the  players  were  Lekain  and  Madame  Vestris ;  and 
the  costumes  and  decorations  cost  three  hundred 
thousand  francs.  But  Julie  flatly  refused  to  attend 
this  celebration,  although  all  Paris  was  scrambling 
for  a  place  :  "  No,  I  shall  not  see  '  The  Constable  '— 
I  am  unable  either  to  judge  or  enjoy  such  scenes — 
but  I  shall  take  the  keenest  interest  in  your  success, 
and  shall  glory  in  it."  Fearing,  not  without  reason, 
the  searching  test  of  the  boards,  she  begged  Guibert 
beforehand  never  again  to  take  their  risks.  "  I 
hope  that  you  will  return  to  me  to-night,"  she  wrote 
on  the  great  day,  "  whether  you  are  covered  with 
glory  or  disheartened  by  a  moderate  success.  Above 
all,  whatever  the  issue  to-night,  swear  that  you  will 
never  again  stage  one  of  your  pieces — this  piece  in 
especial,  for  it  will  be  known  and  judged,  and,  if 
ever  it  come  to  Paris,  lost."  Thus,  while  the  world 
predicted  a  triumph,  she  alone  doubted.  "If  you 


JULIE'S   SOUND   ADVICE  361 

are  on  the  highest  summits  of  glory,  tell  me ;  and  if 
you  are  not  satisfied,  tell  me  that  too.  Never  forget 
that  all  which  is  you  is  more  /  than  myself." 

The  event  proved  Julie  right,  and  the  news  of 
Louis  XVI's  ill-humour  during  the  performance, 
of  Lekain's  poor  playing,  and  of  the  glacial  silence 
following  the  fall  of  the  curtain,  distressed  her  more 
than  the  author  himself.  Her  sympathetic  con- 
dolences were  infinite,  but  she  was  only  the  more 
ardent  to  dissuade  him  from  renewing  this  dangerous 
experiment  by  appealing  from  the  verdict  of  the 
Court  to  that  of  the  general  public ;  and  when, 
emboldened  by  the  encouragement  of  the  Queen, 
he  retouched  his  piece,  changed  the  ending,  and  pre- 
pared for  a  new  series  of  performances,  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse  sought  to  turn  him  from 
this  resolution  by  a  letter  which  is  an  admirable 
example  of  logic,  justice,  and  sound  sense,  and  may 
well  be  partially  quoted :  "  I  disapprove  of  the 
changes  in  'The  Constable,'  and  for  these  reasons. 
Item — having  thus  changed  about  and  altered  this 
piece,  you  will  be  judged  afresh,  and  with  more 
severity  than  the  first  time.  This  is  quite  fair,  for 
originally,  yielding  to  the  Queen's  desire,  you  staged 
a  play  never  written  for  the  stage.  That  fact 
claimed  indulgence  for  you,  won  you  credit  for  the 
many  beauties  of  your  piece,  and  if  any  one  criticised 
plot  or  diction  he  always  added,  '  This  was  not 
-written  to  be  acted'  On  the  present  occasion,  how- 
ever, you  set  up  as  an  author,  and  assume  cor- 
responding obligations  accordingly.  You  are  known 
to  have  made  changes  with  a  view  to  the  pre- 


362  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

sentation  of  the  piece ;  it  will  even  be  said  that 
you  have  induced  the  Queen  to  demand  the  new 
representation.  ...  In  any  case,"  she  resumes  later 
in  her  letter,  "  if  you  were  to  permit  yourself  any 
change,  you  should  have  given  all  your  attention 
to  the  purity,  elegance,  and  dignity  of  the  style. 
Having  again  heard  your  piece,  people  would 
then  have  said :  '  But  I  had  not  realised  that  it 
was  so  well  written ;  there  is  neither  carelessness 
nor  inaccuracy  here.'  .  .  .  Instead  of  this,  they 
will  find  a  mass  of  loose  ends,  while  such  changes 
as  you  make  will  surely  destroy  its  real  original 
beauties.  ...  My  friend,  should  you  slay  me,  I 
would  still  maintain  that  I  am  right.  But  I  have 
spoken.  Do  as  you  will ;  I  wash  my  hands  of  you  ; 
but  never  think  that  I  shall  murmur,  as  do  all  these 
ladies  who  know  how  to  praise  but  not  how  to  feel : 
'  Ah  I  How  beautiful!  How  these  changes  improve 
it !  What  a  success  it  will  have  / '  I  shall  repeat 
to  you  a  hundred  times :  '  No,  it  will  not  be  a 
success,  precisely  because  it  has  been  changed.' " 

Never  was  prophecy  more  true.  Played  before 
a  paying  public,  the  piece  fell  perfectly  flat  and 
never  rose  again.  Chastellux,  asked  for  his  opinion 
next  day,  found  it  "horribly  changed,  although, 
for  the  matter  of  that,  even  the  first  representation 
showed  that  it  was  menaced  by  a  serious  disease." 
The  salons  chimed  in,  and  the  same  people  who 
yesterday  praised  it  to  the  clouds  could  not  find 
quips  sharp  enough  for  the  unfortunate  tragedy. 
Julie  hereupon  reversed  her  part,  and  forthwith 
defended  the  piece  against  its  detractors — frantically, 


GUIBERT'S  PROJECTED  MARRIAGE   363 

and  to  the  point  of  risking  quarrels  with  all  her 
most  intimate  friends,  "for,"  she  ingenuously  told 
him,  "  it  seemed  to  me  the  height  of  injustice  and 
insolence  that  they  should  dare  to  judge  you.  I 
would  have  the  exclusive  right  of  thinking  ill  of 
you ! " 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  certainly  exhibited 
rare  and  beautiful  fidelity  in  thus  espousing  Guibert's 
cause  and  taking  his  part  against  every  one  in  his 
mishap,  at  the  very  moment  when  she  was  suffering 
the  most  cruel  and  humiliating  experience  possible 
to  a  woman  in  her  position.  His  projected  marriage 
did  not,  indeed,  come  to  her  as  a  revelation,  for 
already  a  year  before,  in  September  1774,  the 
possibility  had  been  forced  upon  her  attention. 
During  the  early  part  of  the  sojourn  which  he  was 
then  making  with  his  parents,  Guibert  suddenly 
interjected  a  sad  picture  of  the  condition  of  his 
family  into  a  letter  of  the  most  tender  protestations  : 
"  I  am  besieged  by  a  thousand  small  anxieties  that 
poison  my  pleasure  in  being  at  home."  Thus 
prefaced,  followed  a  long  list  of  the  cares  which 
overwhelmed  him — the  edicts  of  Abbe"  Terray  that 
threatened  his  father  with  ruin  ;  two  marriageable 
sisters,  with  little  or  no  portions  ;  a  mother  ill,  and 
anxious  about  the  future ;  personal  debts  which 
"are  insensibly  increased  by  each  day's  life  in 
Paris."  This  harrowing  description  concluded  with 
the  shaft,  thrown  out  as  though  at  random  and  by 
a  careless  hand  :  "In  my  present  perplexity,  and 
with  this  prevision  of  what  awaits  me,  I  have  per- 
haps but  one  means  of  escaping  my  debts,  assisting 


364  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

my  family,  and  placing  myself  in  a  position  to  help 
them.  I  must  marry.  My  father  has  received 
several  good  propositions  from  among  our  neigh- 
bours, but  I  have  refused  them  all.  I  would  rather 
die  than  live  in  the  country."  Julie  did  not  permit 
herself  to  respond  to  this  lead,  so  Guibert  returned 
to  the  subject  a  few  weeks  later,  and  now  more 
definitely  still :  "  My  father  will  not  come  to  Paris 
until  January,  as  he  is  nursing  a  project  of  marriage 
which  would  establish  me  down  there.  I  tell  you 
this  as  I  shall  tell  you  everything,  for  you  will 
advise  and  help  me."  And,  as  though  he  feared 
this  were  insufficient,  he  brusquely  adds  the  sug- 
gestion that  Julie  should  select  for  him  this  heiress 
who  shall  re-establish  his  fortunes.  "  If  I  am  obliged 
to  marry,  I  should  like  it  to  be  with  your  help." 

If  ever  Julie  de  Lespinasse  should  have  rebelled, 
this  would  seem  to  have  been  the  occasion.  But, 
in  place  of  the  more  violent  scene  than  any  yet 
witnessed,  we  are  to  listen  to  these  surprising 
words :  "  You  will  never  guess  what  I  am  thinking 
about,  and  what  I  desire.  I  wish  to  marry  a  man 
who  is  my  friend.  I  have  a  plan  which  I  wish 
might  be  successful.  .  .  .  There  is  a  young  person 
sixteen  years  old  who  has  a  mother  but  no  father. 
.  .  .  Upon  her  marriage  she  will  be  given  an  in- 
come of  thirteen  thousand  francs.  She  may  live 
with  her  mother  as  long  as  she  likes,  as  her  brother 
is  still  a  child.  This  girl's  fortune  cannot  be  less 
than  six  hundred  thousand  francs,  and  she  may  be 
much  richer.  Would  that  suit  you,  my  friend  ? 
Speak,  and  we  will  bestir  ourselves."  If  this  affair 


JULIE'S    ATTITUDE  365 

fall  through,  Julie  knows  of  another  family  who 
would  be  "  glad  to  have  Guibert  for  a  son-in-law." 
True,  the  girl  is  only  eleven  years  old,  "  but  she  is 
an  only  child,  and  she  will  be  very  rich."  The 
conclusion  to  all  this  is  surely  justified  :  "You  will 
acknowledge  that  the  Quietists,  and  our  sensitive 
Fenelon,  could  not  love  God  with  more  self-abne- 
gation ! " 

The  key  to  this  surprising  complaisance  may  be 
found  in  the  date  of  this  correspondence,  which 
occurred  during  the  time  when  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse  believed  herself  betrayed,  and  deserted 
for  Madame  de  Montsauge.  Presumably,  it  then 
seemed  preferable  to  yield  her  lover — if  yielded  he 
must  be — to  a  legitimate  wife  rather  than  a  mistress 
— an  unknown  person,  rather  than  the  old  detested 
rival.  The  fears  which  gave  it  birth,  however,  no 
sooner  yielded  to  a  faint  hope  of  reconquering  the 
faithless  one  than  her  tone  changed,  and  she  used 
as  much  eloquence  to  dissuade  him  from  this  plan 
of  matrimony  as  she  had  previously  devoted  to 
encouraging  him.  "  My  friend,  I  am  surer  than 
ever  that  a  man  of  talent,  genius,  and  ambition 
should  not  marry.  Marriage  is  an  extinguisher  of 
everything  great  and  brilliant.  Men  tender  and 
honest  enough  to  make  good  husbands  can  be 
nothing  more.  Such  men  are  doubtless  happy, 
but  nature  has  destined  others  to  be  great  and  not 
to  be  happy.  Diderot  tells  us  that  when  nature 
makes  a  man  of  genius,  she  waves  a  torch  above 
his  head,  saying :  '  Be  great  and  be  unhappy.' 
That,  I  think,  was  what  she  said  at  your  birth." 


366  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

This  first  alarm  was  succeeded  by  six  months  in 
which  there  was  no  more  question  of  a  marriage. 
Julie,  reassured,  hoped  that  it  was  at  an  end,  when, 
one  evening  in  March,  Guibert  let  fall  a  chance 
word  which  threw  her  into  the  most  violent  agita- 
tion. She  controlled  herself  until  he  left,  but  next 
instant  seized  a  pen  and  wrote  all  that  which  she 
did  not  dare  to  say  :  "  Eleven  o'clock  in  the  evening, 
Tuesday. — Do  you  remember  these  words:  '  It  is 
not  Madame  de  Montsauge  whom  you  need  fear, 
but  .  .  .,'  and  the  tone  in  which  they  were  spoken ! 
And  the  silence  which  followed  !  And  the  reticence 
and  resistance !  Ah,  does  it  need  all  this  to  bring 
sorrow  and  distress  to  my  agitated  soul  ?  Add  to 
this  your  haste  to  be  gone,  and  shall  I  wonder  for 
whom  you  were  in  such  a  hurry  ?  Could  I  be 
calm  ?  I  loved  you,  I  suffered,  and  I  accused 
myself." 

All  next  day  Julie  waited  for  a  reply,  but  Guibert 
kept  silence,  neither  explaining  his  ambiguous  words 
nor  paying  attention  to  her  agonised  questions. 
Such  conduct  naturally  kindled  her  worst  suspicions  : 
certain  that  some  unknown  misfortune  was  impend- 
ing, she  implored  the  dreaded  avowal  with  tears  : 
"  My  friend,  be  honest,  I  conjure  you.  Tell  me 
how  woman  may  deserve  the  truth,  and  nothing 
shall  be  impossible  !  Listen  to  the  cry  of  your  own 
soul ;  you  will  cease  to  rend  mine.  .  .  .  Esteem  me 
enough  not  to  deceive  me.  I  swear  by  all  most  dear 
to  me — by  you — never  to  make  you  repent  of  con- 
fessing the  truth.  I  shall  love  you  for  the  pain  and 
the  shame  that  you  will  have  spared  me.  .  .  .  My 


GUIBERT'S   CHOICE  367 

friend,  think  well  upon  it ;  you  would  be  very  unwise 
and  very  dishonest  should  you  let  slip  this  chance 
of  yielding  to  the  desire,  to  the  need  of  your  soul. 
Believe  that,  from  this  moment,  you  may  no  longer 
leave  me  in  ignorance.  I  have  robbed  you  of  every 
pretext  for  deceiving  me  ;  if  now  you  take  advan- 
tage of  me,  you  will  be  more  than  guilty  !  " 

Pressed  and  commanded  thus,  Guibert  at  last 
yielded  up  the  fatal  secret  which  was  to  be  her  death- 
blow. His  marriage  was  arranged,  and  the  date 
almost  fixed.  Mademoiselle  de  Courcelles  was  a 
young  girl  of  seventeen,  pretty,  intelligent,  rich, 
and  well-born.  She  was  the  great-grand-daughter 
of  the  celebrated  dramatic  author  Dancourt,  and, 
having  literary  tastes,  professed  a  tremendous  admi- 
ration for  Count  de  Guibert.  The  marriage  had,  in 
fact,  been  planned  almost  a  year  earlier,  and  Gui- 
bert's  mysterious  absence  had  no  other  motive  than 
a  first  meeting.  Though  the  marriage  could  not 
take  place  immediately,  it  was  definitely  arranged, 
and  Guibert  had  long  been  in  constant  communica- 
tion with  the  family  of  Courcelles.  A  note  written 
by  him  to  his  future  mother-in-law  is  witness  of  his 
intimacy  in  the  house,  and  of  his  lover-like  impa- 
tience :  "  I  much  regret  that  I  am  engaged.  I  am 
going  with  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  Monsieur 
d'Alembert,  and  I  don't  know  who  else,  to  see 
Julien's  pictures.  I  am  at  your  service  on  Friday 
and  Saturday.  What  a  charming  time  I  had  with 
you  last  evening  !  How  happy  I  shall  be  when  my 
life  consists  of  such  evenings !  " 

Julie  was   long   ignorant   of   these  details,   for 


368  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Guibert  represented  to  her  that  his  marriage  was  a 
simple  act  of  reason  and  convenience,  almost  forced 
upon  him  by  his  family,  and  but  recently  arranged. 
The  blow  was  none  the  less  terrible,  and  seemed  at 
first  utterly  to  crush  her.  "  We  can  no  longer  love 
each  other,"  was  her  first  word  ;  the  next,  "  I  cannot 
live."  Next  day  she  wrote  :  "  I  cannot  express  all 
that  I  suffer,  all  that  I  feel ;  it  seems  impossible  to 
bear  up  under  it.  I  feel  that  my  whole  being  is 
giving  way,  and  I  feel  that  I  need  only  surrender 
myself,  to  die.  A  long  and  painful  struggle  suc- 
ceeded between  her  wounded  pride  which  com- 
manded a  rupture  with  Guibert,  and  her  passion 
which  forbade  it ;  by  Guibert's  entreaties  that  he 
may  still  remain  her  friend,  and  her  conscientious 
scruples  lest  inclination  prove  too  strong  for  such 
a  new  part.  "  How  do  you  expect  me  to  say  whether 
I  shall  love  you  in  three  months'  time  ?  While  I  am 
seeing  you,  while  your  presence  charms  my  senses 
and  my  soul,  how  should  I  be  able  to  foretell  my  feel- 
ings about  your  marriage?  My  friend,  I  have  no  ideas, 
none  at  all.  .  .  .  My  habit  of  life  and  of  character, 
my  way  of  being  and  feeling,  my  whole  existence  in 
a  word,  make  pretence  and  constraint  impossible. 
.  .  .  I  can  understand,"  she  continues,  "that  were 
you  set  to  create  a  disposition  for  me,  you  would 
give  me  a  character  more  suitable  to  your  require- 
ments. One  does  not  ask  for  hardness  and  strength 
in  one's  victims,  but  feebleness  and  submissiveness. 
Friend,  I  am  capable  of  all  things,  except  this — to 
bend.  I  could  suffer  martyrdom ;  I  should  have 
Strength,  I  will  say  it,  to  commit  crime,  to  satisfy  my 


JULIE'S    CONDUCT  369 

passion  ;  but  I  find  nothing  in  me  which  promises 
that  1  shall  ever  be  willing  to  sacrifice  my  passion." 
Such  was  her  distress  and  her  suffering,  that 
Julie  almost  wished  to  hasten  the  fatal  day,  if  so 
be  the  unalterable  fact  may  bring  a  little  calm  and 
repose  :  "  I  am  waiting  for, — I  desire  your  marriage. 
I  am  like  the  sick  man  who  is  to  be  operated  upon  : 
he  sees  his  cure  in  prospect,  and  forgets  the  violent 
means  by  which  he  is  to  gain  it.  My  friend,  deliver 
me  from  the  misfortune  of  loving  you."  Signature 
of  the  contract  on  the  first  of  May  none  the  less 
gave  the  signal  for  another  crisis  of  despair  :  "  The 
sentence  is  signed,  then !  God  grant  that  it  is 
pronounced  for  your  happiness,  as  surely  as  it  is 
pronounced  upon  my  life !  You  overwhelm  me  ;  I 
must  escape  from  you  if  I  would  recover  the  strength 
that  you  have  taken  from  me.  .  .  .  Do  nothing  more 
for  me.  Your  goodness  and  your  kindness  can  only 
increase  my  pains."  A  thousand  conflicting  feelings 
and  desires  tore  her  soul,  until  existence  was  one 
awful  contradiction.  One  day  in  May,  wild  desire 
seized  her  to  know  and  see  this  girl  who  was  so 
surely  both  the  occasion  and  the  instrument  of  her 
torture.  Guibert,  she  knew,  expected  Madame  de 
Courcelles  and  her  daughter  at  seven  o'clock  that 
evening.  She  reached  the  house  a  few  moments 
before  that  hour,  and  installing  herself  there  to 
await  them,  terrified  the  master  of  the  house  : 
"You  come  to  torture  me,"  was  upon  the  point  of 
his  tongue  ;  "  to  spy  upon  my  actions,  so  as  to  be 
able  later  to  steep  yourself  in  gall,  and  overwhelm 
me  with  reproaches."  Yet  the  double  visit  passed 

2  A 


370  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

off  delightfully.  Julie  was  affable,  gracious,  even 
"caressing"  with  the  young  girl  :  "  Heaven's  own 
language  is  upon  her  lips ! "  Mademoiselle  de 
Courcelles  was  "enchanted"  with  this  reception, 
and  Guibert,  astonished,  touched,  and  grateful, 
was  tempted  to  "  fall  at  her  feet,"  and  apologise 
for  his  recent  temper.  His  surprise  and  joy  were 
redoubled  by  the  note  which  reached  him  a  few 
moments  later:  "I  find  the  young  person  very 
charming,  and  worthy  of  your  interest  in  her ;  her 
mother's  face,  manners,  and  appearance  are  equally 
pleasant  and  interesting.  Yes,  you  will  be  happy." 
But  morning  brought  a  complete  change.  The 
grace  and  beauty  of  Guibert's  chosen  bride  now 
exasperated  the  embittered  heart  of  the  deserted 
woman,  who,  agonised  to  the  point  of  injustice, 
overwhelmed  her  inconstant  friend  with  an  ava- 
lanche of  reproaches,  against  which  he  struggled 
with  justifiable  indignation  :  "  Your  picture  of  me 
and  of  my  conduct  is  horrible  !  You  rank  me  with 
Lovelace,  and  all  the  greatest  scoundrels !  You 
gratuitously  credit  me  with  the  intention  of  tor- 
menting you,  of  consigning  your  days  to  unhap- 
piness,  of  desiring  you  to  live  upon  a  passion  which 
caters  to  my  vanity.  You  say  that  I  turn,  and 
re-turn,  the  dagger  in  your  wound.  .  .  .  Thus  I 
revel  in  your  tears,  in  your  convulsions,  your  desire 
to  die,  and  in  this  unfortunate  feeling  which  still 
binds  you  to  life !  .  .  .  I  feed  upon  it ;  I  have  the 
soul  of  an  executioner  !  "  Yet  he  defended  himself 
with  gentleness  against  these  outrageous  charges  : 
"  I  examine  myself,  I  search  my  heart,  and  my 


HER    MOODS  371 

heart  reassures  me.      I  am  not  so  culpable  towards 
you  as  you  imagine.  ...   I  love  you  now,  I  have 
loved  you,  I  was  carried  away  by  you.      I  tried  to 
console  you.     That  I  would  have  given,  and  would 
still  give,  my  life  for  you,  are  my  crimes.     Read  my 
letters    over,  judge   me,   consider   all   the    circum- 
stances, and  see  whether  I  am  wicked,  as  you  say." 
Guibert  was  sincere  enough.     He  never  really 
understood,  and  never  could  understand,  the  con- 
trasts, the  upheavals,  and  the  conflicting  emotions 
of  Julie's  impetuous  heart,  for  he  had  no  personal 
contact  with  so  nervous  and  highly-strung  a  nature, 
exalted  to  the  point  of  folly,  sensitive  to  the  point 
of  torture,   and  utterly  different  to  all  others  that 
ever  he  knew.     The  coldness,  egoism,  and  "  bar- 
barity," of  which  Julie  was  accusing  him  on  the  very 
threshold  of  the  tomb,  were  the  natural  consequence 
and  effect  of  perpetual  misapprehension.     Guibert 
was  absolutely  sincere  when,  some  months  later,  he 
confessed    to    Julie    the   confusion    into   which  she 
plunged  his  mind  :     "  Your  soul  is    sometimes  so 
quick  and  fiery,  sometimes  so  cold  and  withering, 
always  so  sad  and  so  difficult  to  lead,  that  one  hardly 
knows  how  to  meet  it." 

As  the  weeks  passed,  and  the  date  set  for  the 
wedding  approached,  Julie's  temper  became  in- 
creasingly exalted,  more  and  more  devoured  by 
fever.  She  constantly  summoned  Guibert  to  her, 
yet  was  as  often  unable  to  endure  his  presence. 
Each  word  of  affection  was  then  received  as  an 
insult:  "I  want  you  to  know  that  I  am  unable 
to  bear  protection  and  compassion ;  my  soul  was 


372  JULIE   DE    LESPINASSE 

not  fashioned  in  such  base  mould.  Your  pity  gives 
the  finishing  touch  to  my  misery  ;  spare  me  the 
expression  of  it.  Persuade  yourself  that  you  owe 
me  nothing,  and  that  I  no  longer  exist  for  you." 

The  wedding-day  was  fixed  for  the  first  of  June, 
at  the  Chateau  de  Courcelles,  not  far  from  Gien, 
on  the  border  of  Berri.  Here  Guibert  was  to  join 
his  affianced  bride,  ten  days  before  the  date  of  the 
ceremony.  On  the  eve  of  his  departure,  he  received 
a  last  disconnected  and  almost  incoherent  note,  in 
which  almost  every  word  amounted  to  a  cry  of 
anguish:  "Good-bye;  do  not  come  to  see  me! 
My  soul  is  panic-stricken,  and  you  can  never  calm 
it.  You  have  neither  the  tender  interest  which 
consoles  and  sustains,  nor  the  goodness  and  truth 
which  give  confidence  and  repose  to  a  wounded 
and  deeply  afflicted  soul.  Ah !  how  you  hurt  me  ! 
I  ought  never  to  see  you  again  !  If  you  are  honest, 
leave  to-morrow  after  dinner.  I  shall  see  you  in 
the  morning — more  than  enough  !  " 

Guibert  presented  Julie  with  a  parting  gift  in  the 
guise  of  a  small  ring,  made  for  her  from  a  circlet 
of  hair  held  together  by  a  few  threads  of  gold, — 
an  emblem  of  his  attachment.  This  simple  orna- 
ment seemed  to  her  more  beautiful  and  precious 
than  all  the  diamonds  of  the  king,  and  the  thought 
of  it  touched  her  deeply.  As  soon  as  Guibert  left 
her,  she  put  the  ring  on  her  finger.  "  Two  hours 
later,  it  was  broken,"  she  writes.  The  trifling  in- 
cident froze  her  with  superstitious  horror ;  she 
saw  in  it  a  mysterious  sign,  the  symbol  of  her 
destiny. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

Complicated  feelings  of  Guibert  on  his  marriage — Charming  qualities  of  his 
wife— Promise  of  a  married  idyll — Despair  and  indignation  of  Made- 
moiselle de  Lespinasse — Vain  attempts  to  divert  her  mind — Bitter 
reproaches  to  the  traitor — Agonised  crisis  and  reaction  towards  a  more 
quiet  mind — She  swears  their  connection  shall  now  be  platonic — Heroic 
resistance  to  Guibert's  pleas — Death  now  her  one  desire— Her  strength 
fails,  and  she  neglects  herself — Her  friends  completely  ignorant  of  the 
cause  of  trouble — Incredible  blindness  of  d'Alembert — His  vexation  at 
her  refusal  of  his  efforts — Her  sweetness  and  his  devotion — Julie's  health 
fails  further,  but  her  passion  is  undiminished — Sincere  grief  and  tender 
protestations  of  Guibert — Sad  letters  of  the  lovers — Abel  de  Vichy 
arrives — Agony  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse — Her  last  letter  to 
Guibert — Her  death — d'Alembert  discovers  Julie's  passion  for  Mora — 
His  indignation  and  despair — He  confides  in  Guibert — Melancholy 
resignation  of  his  last  years. 

"  MY  marriage-day — beginning  of  a  new  life.  In- 
voluntary shudder  during  the  ceremony.  I  was 
pledging  my  liberty  and  my  whole  life.  My  soul 
has  never  been  distracted  by  so  many  thoughts 
and  feelings.  What  a  labyrinth,  what  an  abyss  is 
man's  heart !  I  am  lost  in  the  myriad  windings  of 
mine.  Yet,  everything  promises  happiness.  I  am 
marrying  a  young,  pretty,  sweet,  and  sensible 
woman  who  loves  me,  who  is  made  to  be  loved, 
and  whom  I  already  love."  In  this  hectic  strain 
did  Guibert,  on  the  very  evening  of  his  marriage- 
day,  confide  to  his  private  diary  his  mixed  feelings 
of  anxiety  and  hope.  A  week  later,  the  tone  was 
already  more  joyous  :  "  Days  passed  like  a  dream  ! 
This  new  position  is,  in  fact,  a  dream  to  me. 
Loved,  friendliest,  most  candid,  and  adorable  wife! 


374  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Her  soul  unfolds  from  day  to  day  ;  I  love  her,  I 
shall  love  her,  and  I  feel  convinced  that  I  shall  be 
happy."  Thenceforward,  his  conjugal  tenderness 
increased  hourly ;  and  when  his  military  duties 
compelled  the  first  separation  from  his  wife,  Gui- 
bert's  letters  to  her  were  rather  those  of  a  lover 
than  of  a  husband.  "  Nine  days  without  news  of  you 
make  me  feel  as  if  I  were  a  hundred  miles  away. 
Silence  separates  more  than  distance.  ...  Ah  !  tell 
me  constantly  that  you  love  me !  I  cherish  these 
repetitions — this  craving  speaks  eloquently  from  my 
heart.  .  .  .  That  wretch  Lepine  has  not  sent  me 
my  watch,  but  I  have  your  picture.  I  may  say  with 
the  Duchesse  de  Maine  :  '  The  one  numbers  the 
hours,  the  other  sweeps  them  into  oblivion.' " 

Countess  de  Guibert,  to  whose  delicate  beauty 
Greuze  has  given  eternal  life,  was  altogether  worthy 
of  this  passionate  affection.  Her  youth,  sweetness, 
patience,  and  remarkable  intelligence  soon  enabled 
her  to  exercise  upon  her  impetuous  husband  an 
influence  almost  imperceptible  at  first,  but  one 
which  grew  and  endured.  She  never  annoyed  him 
by  unwise  jealousies,  nor,  whether  in  her  letters  to 
her  mother  or  to  her  husband,  did  she  ever  mention 
the  name  of  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  except  on 
the  one  occasion  when  she  sent  her  a  letter  with  the 
offer  of  a  box  at  the  theatre  on  her  husband's  behalf. 
Although  she  well  knew  how  that  lady  disliked  her- 
self, to  Madame  de  Montsauge  she  was  always  most 
polite,  since  Guibert  was  anxious  that  they  should 
be  friends.  "  I  would  like  my  friends  to  be  yours," 
he  writes  to  Madame  de  Guibert ;  "  I  would  be  the 


MADAME   GUIBERT  375 

connecting  link  in  this  chain."  "  I  would  forgive 
her  for  hating  me,  if  you  loved  her  less,"  she 
answered  sweetly  ;  and,  without  further  resistance, 
she  called  upon  Madame  de  Montsauge,  invited  her 
frequently  to  supper,  and  even  consented  to  stay 
with  her  in  her  Chateau  at  La  Breteche. 

Countess  de  Guibert  possessed  yet  another 
and  greater  virtue  in  her  unmixed,  sincere,  and 
undying  admiration  for  her  husband.  Guibert,  to 
whom  praise  was  a  necessity,  almost  a  physical 
need,  could  not  possibly  resist  the  atmosphere  of 
incense  which  he  constantly  breathed  at  his  own 
hearth.  The  jealous  observation  of  Mademoiselle 
de  Lespinasse  was  quick  to  seize  on  this,  and  she 
wrote  with  bitter  irony  of  "  this  family  always  at 
his  feet,  the  flattery  which,  morning  and  evening, 
caresses  his  vanity."  "  It  was  by  this  that  she 
attracted  you,"  she  cried  ;  "for  this  you  have  sub- 
mitted to  her,  and  how  you  will  be  subjugated  for 
the  rest  of  your  life  !  "  Julie's  discrimination  did 
not  here  go  astray.  As  much  by  her  absolute  faith 
in  her  husband's  genius  as  by  her  own  exquisite 
qualities,  the  young  wife  gradually  won  and  held 
Guibert's  fickle  and  volatile  heart,  and  when  he 
presently  proclaimed  his  complete  submission  to 
this  light  and  pleasant  yoke,  he  confessed  what 
he  knew  to  be  the  simple  truth  :  "  Charming  and 
sweet  creature,  Heaven  has  formed  you  after  my 
heart's  wish.  To  you  were  given  goodness,  grace 
which  is  more  beautiful  than  beauty,  modesty, 
simplicity,  and  sense.  All  these  adorn  your  life. 
.  .  .  Yes,  in  a  few  years  you  will  be  a  woman 


376  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

among  women — the  exclusive  object  of  my  worship, 
and  the  centre  of  all  my  interests.  My  enemies  shall 
turn  pale  with  envy  ;  seeing  my  happiness,  they  shall 
know  that  they  cannot  take  it  from  me ! " 

While  this  edifying  idyll  was  in  progress,  Julie  de 
Lespinasse,  alone  in  her  poor  Paris  lodging,  pictured 
in  spirit  these  scenes  so  heartrending  for  her,  and 
almost  died  for  the  shame,  despair,  and  remorse. 
Through  eight  whole  days  she  mused,  as  she  her- 
self says,  "  without  words  or  tears,"  in  an  appalling 
silence,  interrupted  only  by  convulsive  attacks. 
More  than  ever  did  this  distress  turn  her  thoughts 
to  Mora.  She  wrote  to  him  almost  every  day — to 
tell  him  of  her  misery,  to  implore  his  pardon,  and 
to  conjure  him  to  cease  his  vengeance — and  these 
letters  to  the  dead  were,  for  the  time,  her  only 
correspondence.  Ten  days  after  Guibert's  depar- 
ture she  received  from  him  a  short,  cold,  and  em- 
barrassed note,  in  which  he  excused  his  neglect,  and 
advised  her  to  forget  him.  The  perusal  of  this 
missive,  acting  upon  her  overwrought  nerves,  almost 
crazed  her,  every  word  becoming,  as  she  owns, 
"gall  and  poison."  The  inoffensive  phrase,  "Live, 
for  I  am  not  worth  the  pain  I  cause  you,"  enraged 
her  to  the  point  of  "  suffocation."  Reading  into  it 
no  one  knows  what  hidden  insult,  if  for  a  moment 
during  her  long  nights  of  sleeplessness  she  fell  into 
a  doze,  she  "awoke  with  a  start  of  horror  at  the 
sound  of  these  terrible  words."  Refusing  to  answer 
this  note,  for  six  weeks  she  did  not  even  open  his 
letters.  One  thought  ceaselessly  tormented  her 
fevered  brain,  and  lashed  her  anger  to  fury — 


JULIE'S    BITTERNESS  377 

Guibert  had  never  loved  her ;  she  had  been  but 
his  plaything  and  his  dupe.  The  thought  took 
form  in  these  cutting  terms :  "  To-day  I  see  you 
as  you  are,  for  I  see  that  you  have  done  a  vile 
thing.  You  have  dared  to  reduce  me  to  despair  by 
using  me  for  your  pastime — as  a  means  to  sever 
the  connection  which  could  not  continue  after  your 
marriage.  To  give  some  appearance  of  honesty 
to  your  dealings  with  Madame  de  Montsauge,  you 
have  thought  it  necessary  to  abase  me,  and  to  take 
from  me  the  only  thing  still  remaining  to  me,  my 
self-esteem." 

That  Julie's  frail  body,  already  so  terribly 
weakened,  was  able  to  bear  all  this  self-torment, 
and  her  absolute  neglect  of  her  health,  seems  almost 
miraculous.  She  ate  almost  nothing,  spent  hours 
daily  in  the  bath  in  order  to  keep  down  her  fever, 
and  drugged  her  distracted  nerves  with  enormous 
doses  of  opium.  Hoping  to  divert  her  mind,  she 
turned  headlong  back  to  her  old  worldly  life,  re- 
opened her  salon,  dined  in  town,  and  rushed  wildly 
from  one  entertainment  to  another.  And  when  all 
these  methods  failed  to  stay  the  imperative  need  of 
relieving  her  mind,  she  seized  her  pen  and  upbraided 
Guibert.  She  at  last  decided  to  reopen  her  cor- 
respondence with  him,  because  one  day — mechanic- 
ally, she  averred — having  opened  a  package  in  the 
post,  she  found  in  it  his  pamphlet  I'Eloge  de  Catinat 
and  a  letter  from  the  author.  Reading  it,  she  de- 
termined to  reply,  but  in  what  a  manner  and  in 
what  a  tone  !  The  words  "  hate  "  and  "  vengeance  " 
recur  on  almost  every  page,  interspersed  with  cruel 


378  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

invective.  On  one  page  she  affects  coldness  and 
proud  indifference.  "  Allow  me  the  pride  and  ven- 
geance which  make  it  a  pleasure  to  tell  you  that  I 
forgive  you,  and  that  it  is  no  longer  in  your  power 
to  teach  me  fear."  Another  displays  the  most 
crushing  disdain:  "Your  marriage  taught  me  to 
know  your  whole  soul,  and  thus  alienated  and  closed 
mine  to  you  forever.  There  was  a  time  when  I 
would  rather  have  known  you  unhappy  than  despic- 
able. It  has  passed." 

These  virulent  and  excessive  insults  invite  our 
sympathy  rather  than  blame,  so  evidently  are  they 
the  fruit  of  real  suffering,  and  so  horribly  reminis- 
cent are  they  of  a  death-agony.  On  the  fifteenth 
of  July,  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  was  overcome 
by  an  attack  so  terrible,  by  such  frightful  spasms 
and  terrifying  convulsions,  that  her  last  hour  really 
seemed  at  hand.  Her  hands  and  arms  were  "  twisted 
and  drawn-up,"  and  her  broken  words  seemed  to 
escape  from  between  her  lips :  "  I  shall  die  ...  go 
away !  "  D'Alembert,  standing  horror-struck  at  the 
foot  of  her  bed,  cried  as  if  his  heart  would  break, 
and  continually  bewailed  the  absence  of  Monsieur 
de  Guibert — "  the  only  being  who  could  help  you !  " 
These  words,  she  says,  recalled  her  to  her  senses : 
"  I  felt  that  I  must  calm  myself  for  the  sake  of  this 
good  man.  With  a  great  effort,  I  told  him  that  a 
nervous  attack  had  overcome  me  when  already 
broken  by  my  usual  ills."  A  paroxysm  of  tears 
presently  calmed  her,  and  the  happy  chance  of  the 
arrival  of  a  post,  bringing  two  letters  from  Guibert, 
completed  her  recovery :  "  My  hands  trembled  so 


CALMER   REACTION  379 

that  I  could  hardly  hold  or  open  them.  But  imagine 
the  happiness  when  the  first  word  that  I  read  was 
My  friend.  My  soul,  my  lips,  my  life  fastened  them- 
selves to  the  paper.  I  could  not  read  it,  I  could 
only  distinguish  detached  words :  '  You  give  me 
back  my  life,  I  breathe  again.'  My  friend,  it  was 
you  who  gave  it  to  me.  Never,  no,  never,  have  I 
felt  such  tenderness  and  love." 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  grew  much  calmer 
after  this  crisis.  She  "will  no  longer,"  she  "can 
no  longer  hate."  Little  by  little  she  resigned 
herself  to  the  long-rejected  idea  that  it  is  possible 
to  own  a  place  in  a  heart  although  it  is  not  wholly 
possessed.  The  idea  of  sharing  with  any  one  is 
very  distasteful  to  her,  but,  in  default  of  perfect 
love,  she  henceforward  vaguely  conceived  the  possi- 
bility of  a  chaste  and  innocent  affection,  and  for 
a  time  this  hope  bound  her  to  life  :  "  Yes,  we  will 
be  virtuous,"  she  cried  bravely ;  "  I  swear  and 
promise  it.  Your  happiness  and  your  duty  shall  be 
sacred  to  me  ;  I  should  be  horrified  should  I  find 
in  myself  any  feeling  that  might  trouble  them. 
Good  heavens !  if  one  unvirtuous  thought  were  left 
in  me,  I  should  shudder  at  myself!  .  .  .  No,  my 
friend,  you  will  have  nothing  with  which  to  re- 
proach yourself.  .  .  .  You  know  the  strength  that 
passion  can  give  to  the  soul  it  rules  ?  To  this  I 
promise  that  I  will  add  the  strength  given  by  the 
love  of  virtue  and  by  indifference  to  death,  that  so 
I  may  never  interfere  with  your  happiness  or  your 
duty.  I  have  thoroughly  considered.  Love  me, 
and  I  will  have  strength  to  suffer  a  martyrdom." 


380  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

Being  newly  agreed  on  this  basis,  Guibert,  his 
conscience  at  rest,  certainly  betrayed  more  tender- 
ness and  appeared  more  attentive  than  ever.  Their 
parts  were  reversed  ;  he  now  appealed  to  the  past 
and  begged  for  frequent  letters,  or  with  unwonted 
humility  craved  Julie's  indulgence  :  "  I  am  filled  with 
sorrow  and  remorse.  I  feel  that  all  those  whom  I 
have  loved  or  do  love,  and  who  love  me,  are  un- 
happy. It  seems  my  destiny  to  bring  misfortune 
wherever  I  go.  .  .  .  Write  me  one  word,  and  let  that 
be  My  friend''  Julie  did  not  immediately  reply, 
and  he  wrote  again  :  "I  write  to  you  without  the 
hope  of  a  reply,  but  I  shall  persist,  I  shall  pursue 
you  with  my  affection,  even  should  you  assure  me 
that  it  is  distasteful  to  you."  Coming  to  a  phrase 
in  which  he  found  the  traces  of  bitterness,  his  dis- 
cretion fell  yet  more  away :  "  The  words,  /  do  not 
love  you,  wherever  you  are,  frighten  me.  Ah,  my 
friend,  I  love  you  wherever  I  am,  and  I  shall  never 
change."  Julie's  reception  of  these  protestations 
frequently  suggests  her  smile  of  doubt  and  incredu- 
lity :  "  Is  it  really  true  ?  Do  you  really  need  to  be 
loved  by  me  ?  That  does  not  prove  you  a  man 
of  feeling,  but  that  you  are  insatiable."  Guibert's 
words,  however,  were  certainly  balm  to  her  sick 
heart,  and  her  pen  would  wander  back  to  the  tender 
expressions  of  earlier  days:  "This  simple  truth 
remains — I  love  you  as  warmly  as  if  it  were  your 
happiness  that  was  sacrificed  to  my  pleasure  and 
peace  of  mind." 

At  about  this  time,  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse 
chanced  to  meet  Madame  de  Guibert  and  her  mother 


SHE    DEFIES   GUIBERT'S    PLEAS     381 

in  Paris.  "  I  advanced  to  meet  them,"  she  said 
proudly,  "  and  talked  to  them  of  their  health  and  of 
their  talents  ;  in  fact,  I  dare  promise  that  you  will 
hear  them  call  me  '  very  amiable.'  You  will  not 
believe  a  word  of  it.  ...  I  became  so  perfect  as  to 
frighten  myself.  I  must  be  like  the  swan  whose 
death-song  is  her  best — which  is  something,  after  all ! 
You  will  say,  '  Her  death  is  untimely,  it  is  a  pity ! ' " 
Autumn  brought  Guibert  definitely  back  to  Paris, 
and  Julie  received  him  upon  exactly  the  footing  of 
three  years  before,  at  the  outset  of  their  acquaint- 
ance— frequently,  publicly,  in  an  honest  intimacy 
which  carried  no  remorse  in  its  train. 

Guibert  himself  confesses  that  this  new  and 
delicate  situation  remained  untroubled  to  the  end 
was  due  to  Julie  alone.  Sitting  with  her  on  a 
November  evening  when  he  had  brought,  at  her 
own  request,  a  package  of  her  old  tempestuous 
letters,  he  begged  the  favour  of  reading  them  with 
her.  "  Never,"  he  afterwards  wrote,  "  did  love  in- 
toxicate me  to  such  a  point !  Your  letters,  those 
same  letters  which  should  have  chilled  me,  my 
sudden  recollection  of  the  past,  my  hand  which 
sought  yours, — after  all,  what  can  I  say  to  you  ?  .  .  . 
All  the  fire,  all  the  excitement  of  passion  was  in  my 
heart,  and  you  repulsed  me  with  every  evidence  of 
hatred  and  contempt!  ..."  Neither  violence  nor 
pleas  moved  Julie,  and  Guibert  fled  home,  confused, 
humiliated,  and  vanquished,  thence  to  write,  that 
same  night,  repentantly  imploring  pardon  for  an 
hour  of  madness  :  "  My  friend,  by  what  words  and 
by  what  behaviour  can  I  secure  your  pardon  for  the 


382  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

feelings  which  carried  me  away  ?  You  accuse  me, 
you  condemn  me,  you  hate  me,  you  think  me  with- 
out principles  or  virtue  !  .  .  .  I  am  dying  of  .repent- 
ance and  regret ;  I  cannot  sleep,  I  am  in  despair  at 
having  displeased  you — I  cannot  say  offended  you, 
for  to  offend  is  to  act  with  intent,  and  I  was  so  far 
from  that !  .  .  .  I  shall  postpone  my  journey  ;  I 
shall  throw  myself  at  your  feet  to-morrow,  and  ask 
your  forgiveness.  I  have  never  deserved  it  more, 
and  never  have  you  been  dearer  to  me." 

They  who  would  look  to  find  Julie's  indignation 
implacable,  know  little  of  a  woman's  heart.  She 
never  for  a  moment  weakened  in  will,  or  lapsed 
from  her  irrevocable  decision,  but  her  anger  could 
no  sooner  cool  than  she  must  see  in  this  distracting 
scene  nothing  but  that  Guibert  still  loved  her.  Her 
reply  to  his  letter  was  therefore  as  tender  as  it 
was  troubled  :  "  I  do  not  know  in  what  manner  to 
address  you,  for  I  fear  even  to  speak  with  you. 
My  soul  is  racked,  and  I  see  things  as  one  con- 
fused. I  no  longer  know  whether  crime  or  virtue 
works  for  happiness,  nor  which  is  the  more  painful 
— remorse  or  regret.  ...  I  live,  and  the  reason  is 
as  I  told  you  last  night — the  knowledge  of  your  love 
for  me.  Your  spirit  knows  how  its  power  is  to 
sever  me  from  all  else  in  this  world.  A  quarter  of 
an  hour,  and  we  two  stand  alone  in  life ;  there  is 
neither  past  nor  present ;  you  are  no  longer  guilty, 
and  I  am  no  longer  unhappy." 

A  less  passionate  spirit  might  doubtless  have 
come  to  content  itself  with  this  half-happiness, 
building  upon  love's  ruins  the  sweet  and  enduring 


HER   FAILING   STRENGTH         383 

friendship  so  impossible  to  this  ardent  and  imperious 
soul,  who  herself  confessed  to  knowledge  "  neither 
of  moderation  nor  of  measure."  But  when  Julie 
had  perceived  her  duty,  she  could  only  sacrifice  her 
happiness  to  it.  The  sundered  knot  could  never  be 
retied  ;  the  pain  of  it  could  kill.  Thus  the  autumn 
and  winter  following  Guibert's  marriage  were  but  one 
long  appeal  to  the  death  of  which  she  spoke  as  of  a 
friend.  "  Let  him  but  come,  and  I  promise — not  to 
receive  him  with  shrinking,  but  as  my  welcome 
deliverer !  .  .  .  I  ask  myself  what  I  need,  what 
there  is  for  me  in  the  world?  I  find  no  answer, 
unless  in  that  desire  of  the  tired  traveller — a  place 
to  rest  my  head — Saint  Sulpice  for  me  ! "  As  her 
strength  waned,  this  cry  grew  in  power  :  "  Let  me 
stay  and  rest  my  mind  in  this  much-desired  and 
long-awaited  moment  of  which  I  feel  the  approach 
as  it  were  with  rapture." 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  did  not  speak  idly 
in  this.  She  knew  that  the  spring  of  her  life  ran 
dry,  and  that  the  incurable  malady  which  night 
and  day  sapped  her  being  had  passed  "  from  her 
soul  to  her  body."  The  doctor  was  no  less  aware 
of  the  cause  of  her  terrible  wasting.  "He  repeats 
that  I  am  devoured  by  sorrow,  that  my  pulse  and 
my  respiration  bear  witness  to  active  suffering,  and 
he  always  takes  his  leave  with  the  saying,  '  We 
have  no  drugs  to  cure  the  soul!'"  At  this  time, 
however,  the  doctor  had  little  opportunity  even 
to  confess  his  impotence  to  cure.  Julie  preferred 
to  be  her  own  physician,  and  her  one  care  was 
to  spare  herself  physical  suffering.  "  Sedatives," 


384  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

that  is  to  say  soporifics,  were  her  specific,  and 
she  used  them  immoderately,  as  she  pleased,  de- 
spite the  remonstrance  of  her  friends.  Countess 
de  Boufflers  vigorously  attacked  her  on  this  score, 
but  without  success:  "It  is  a  strange  thing  to 
find  an  intelligent  person  who  dreads  doctors  and 
not  drugs.  Do  you,  then,  imagine  that  they  kill 
with  knives?  Believe  me,  their  pills  are  more 
unpleasant  than  their  presence;  and  when  one 
takes  to  physic,  it  is  safer  to  consult  them,  for 
ignorant  they  may  be,  yet  still  know  more  than 
we  do."  No  reasoning,  however,  could  influence 
her,  for  this  conduct  was  part  of  the  preconceived 
plan  which  makes  this  last  phase  of  her  life  nothing 
less  than  a  long-drawn  suicide,  coldly  premeditated 
and  relentlessly  accomplished,  during  which  she 
made  all  her  last  arrangements — planning  out  the 
details  of  her  burial,  carefully  indicating  what  shall 
be  done  when  she  is  gone — as  "to  have  her  head 
opened  by  a  charity  surgeon."  She  confided  all 
these  dismal  wishes  to  Guibert,  who  was  "frozen 
with  horror."  "You  must,  then,  have  no  feeling 
for  me  of  any  sort,"  he  cried,  "  thus  to  bring  despair 
to  my  soul !  You  say  that  you  do  not  do  so ; 
that  all  my  sorrows  are  transient,  that  my  tears 
even  prove  nothing — I  have  shed  them  so  often ! 
Will  you  not  say  that  they  are  feigned?" 

This  idea,  indeed,  which  continually  pursued 
her,  was  the  only  fear  that  clung  about  the  threshold 
of  the  tomb.  Guibert  would  soon  forget  her, 
and  would  not  mourn  her  long :  "  Friend,  there 
is  in  you  nothing  either  deep  or  constant.  There 


BLINDNESS   OF   HER   FRIENDS     385 

are  days  when  the  news  of  my  death  would  hardly 
produce  any  impression  upon  you,  and — you  see 
how  well  I  know  you — there  might  be  a  moment 
when  you  would  be  crushed  by  it."  In  spite  of 
physical  weakness,  her  love  still  filled  her  heart, 
strong,  indestructible,  and  triumphant  over  any 
suffering.  "  I  am  myself  only  when  I  see  you. 
Your  presence  charms  away  all  my  ills ;  you  alter- 
nately give  me  fever  and  cure  me  of  it,  so  that  I 
hardly  know  whether  I  have  suffered.  When  I 
see  you,  I  need  only  your  love ;  Heaven  is  in  my 
soul ;  I  no  longer  judge  you,  I  forget  that  you  are 
faulty,  I  love  you ! " 

It  is  an  astonishing  fact  that  among  her  in- 
numerable friends  not  even  the  most  intimate  ever 
suspected  the  true  cause  of  that  wasting  which 
so  afflicted  their  hearts.  Attributing  her  languor, 
her  feebleness,  and  her  pitiable  emaciation  to  her 
sorrow  for  Mora's  loss,  they  vied  with  each  other 
in  lecturing  her,  with  affectionate  logic,  upon  the 
uselessness  of  these  eternal  regrets.  "  You  have 
exaggerated  ideas  of  love,"  Suard  wrote,  "  which 
revive  feelings  that  would  otherwise  fade,  and 
recall  to  your  imagination  everything  that  makes 
them  more  bitter  and  more  lasting.  Ah,  Made- 
moiselle, I  have  but  one  prayer :  do  not  be 
greater  than  nature !  Allow  yourself  to  re- 
spond to  what  attracts  you  ;  do  not  call  to  mind 
your  gloomy  memories,  but  console  yourself  for 
not  being  inconsolable."  Condorcet,  Madame  de 
Boufflers,  and  her  other  friends  all  used  like 
arguments,  and  filled  her  with  painful  humiliation. 

2  B 


386  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

"  They  all  believe  that  Monsieur  de  Mora's  death 
is  killing  me.  My  friend,  if  they  knew  that  it 
is  you — your  marriage  that  was  my  death-blow — 
what  horror  they  would  feel  for  me !  how  con- 
temptible I  should  seem  to  them!  Ah,  they  could 
not  accuse  me  more  loudly  than  does  my  own 
heart."  Her  self-hatred  at  this  deception  kept  her 
continually  at  the  point  of  revealing  her  secret. 
"  I  do  not  know  how  it  happens  that  I  have  not 
already  twenty  times  uttered  the  words  which 
would  disclose  the  secret  of  my  life  and  of  my 
heart."  Yet  silent  she  remained,  and  her  lacerated 
heart  kept  its  own  counsel  so  well  that  when, 
thirty  years  later,  Guibert's  widow  printed  Julie's 
first  letters,  Madame  Suard  had  scarcely  read  ten 
pages  of  the  book  before  it  had  fallen  from  her 
hand,  and  she  rushed  to  her  husband,  crying : 
"My  friend,  she  loved  Monsieur  de  Guibert!" 
Suard,  too,  could  find  no  words  but  "  I  have  just 
discovered  it,"  and  the  pair  were  alike  overwhelmed 
with  astonishment. 

The  blindness  of  d'Alembert  is  even  more  in- 
comprehensible, for  he  lived  under  the  same  roof, 
and  followed,  almost  hour  by  hour,  every  phase 
of  her  existence.  In  his  passionate  tenderness  for 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  and  with  his  perfect 
knowledge  of  her  nature,  he  could  never  attribute 
her  suffering  to  other  than  purely  mental  causes  ; 
but  as  he  had  never  believed  her  feeling  for 
Mora  to  be  more  than  friendship,  he  could  not, 
like  the  others,  explain  her  decline  by  grief  for 
him.  And,  also,  he  had  to  remark,  with  bitter 


D'ALEMBERT  387 

despair,  her  sudden  and  complete  change  of 
attitude  towards  him.  He  was  no  longer  greeted, 
as  during  her  anxiety  for  Mora,  by  coldness  and 
the  vacant  silence  of  a  person  absorbed  in  sad 
thoughts,  but  with  a  dry  bitterness,  or — would  he 
approach  her — with  a  drawing  back  which  seemed 
actual  repulsion.  Julie  accuses  herself  for  this 
conduct  in  one  of  her  letters  to  Guibert.  "  Did 
it  not  seem  too  ungrateful,  I  would  say  that  Mon- 
sieur d'Alembert's  departure  would  give  me  a  sort 
of  pleasure.  His  presence  weighs  upon  my  soul. 
He  makes  me  ill  at  ease  with  myself;  I  feel  too 
unworthy  of  his  friendship  and  his  goodness." 

D'Alembert's  pain  at  this  change  in  her  need 
not  be  described.  He  never  complained,  but  if 
redoubled  care,  constant  consideration,  and  inde- 
fatigable devotion  may  win  back  the  heart  that  slips 
away,  he  would  have  kept  this  one.  The  portrait 
of  himself  that  he  presented  to  Julie  at  about  this 
time  has  under  it  these  melancholy  lines  : — 

"  Take  thou,  in  tenderest  friendship,  this,  his  face, 
Thy  strong  stay  in  all  ills  who  fain  would  be ; 
And  whisper,  if  sometimes  thy  glance  may  grace 
Its  features :  '  Of  all  those  I  loved,  who  so  loved 
me  as  he  ? '  " 

Vainly,  however,  did  he  rack  his  brain  ;  for  never 
in  the  long  sleepless  nights  could  he  divine  the 
sad  truth — not  even  on  the  day  after  Julie's  death, 
when  his  spirit  groaned:  "For  what  reason  that 
I  can  neither  comprehend  or  suspect  did  your 
tender  feeling  for  me  change  to  estrangement  and 
aversion  ?  What  was  my  crime  to  displease  you  ? 


388  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

.  .  .  Had  you  done  me  some  wrong  of  which  I 
was  ignorant,  and  which  it  would  have  been  my 
joy  to  pardon  did  I  know  of  it?  You  told  one 
of  my  friends,  who  reproached  you  for  your  treat- 
ment of  me,  that  the  reason  of  your  coldness  was 
that  you  could  not  open  your  heart  to  me,  and 
let  me  see  the  wounds  which  sapped  your  life. 
Twenty  times  I  have  been  on  the  point  of  throwing 
myself  into  your  arms,  and  of  demanding  to  know 
my  crime,  but  I  feared  lest  your  arms  should 
spurn  mine — outstretched  to  you.  Your  look,  your 
speech,  even  your  silence  seemed  to  forbid  my 
approach." 

D'Alembert,  so  far  from  crediting  his  friend 
with  an  unhappy  love,  naturally  had  not  the  least 
suspicion  of  Guibert,  whose  absence  we  have 
already  heard  him  deplore  when  Julie  lay  so  near 
to  death,  and  towards  whom  he  always  showed 
especial  confidence  and  sympathy.  "  Monsieur 
d'Alembert  loves  you  as  though  I  influenced  him," 
Julie  once  told  her  lover  with  a  half-smile,  and  that 
lover  never  left  Paris  without  constantly  receiving 
letters  from  the  philosopher.  Is  he  ill  himself, 
d'Alembert  writes  anxious  inquiries ;  weakness 
confines  Julie  to  her  room,  he  keeps  Guibert 
informed  as  to  her  condition,  himself  sometimes 
carries  him  letters  from  the  invalid,  addressed  in 
his  own  hand.  Such  surprising  simplicity  would 
seem  ridiculous  but  for  the  pathos  of  its  absolute 
faith,  self-abnegation,  and  generous  devotion.  And 
this  wonderful  fidelity  endured  to  the  end  of  his 
life,  for  when  Marmontel  would  once  have  dis- 


HER    LAST    DAYS  389 

tracted  him  from  his  grief,  by  a  reminder  of  his 
friend's  ingratitude,  there  were  tears  in  the  voice 
which  replied  :  "  She  was  altered,  but  I  never." 

The  already  terribly  precarious  condition  of 
Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  did  not  fail  to  grow 
worse  with  winter.  "  I  am  cold,  so  cold,"  she 
says,  "  that  my  thermometer  is  twenty  degrees 
below  Reaumur.1  This  supreme  cold,  and  state  of 
perpetual  torture,  discourage  me  so  absolutely  that 
I  have  no  longer  the  strength  to  wish  for  anything 
better.  ...  I  freeze,  I  tremble,  I  am  dying  of 
cold,"  she  says  later ;  "  my  heart  is  so  cold,  so 
heavy  and  painful,  that  I  could  say  like  the  mad- 
woman of  Bedlam,  'it  suffers  as  if  it  would  burst.'  " 
The  chills  which  froze  the  blood  in  her  veins  in 
the  evening,  were  succeeded  by  a  high  fever  which 
kept  her  nightly  awake  until  dawn.  Paroxysms 
of  coughing  and  suffocation,  and  headaches  which 
make  her  "half  crazy,"  led  to  yet  more  frequent 
recourse  to  the  dangerous  aid  of  opium,  of  which 
she  would  sometimes  take  four  grains  at  a  time. 
"  Such  doses,"  she  says,  "  calm  me  as  Medusa's 
head  once  calmed.  I  am  petrified,  incapable  of 
motion,  and  lost  to  the  use  of  all  my  faculties  ; 
things  pass  before  me  as  on  the  sheet  before  a 
magic-lantern — so  much  so  that  for  two  whole 
hours  this  afternoon  it  would  have  been  impossible 
for  me  to  put  names  to  the  faces  that  I  saw.  Oh, 
but  it  is  a  strange  thing — thus  to  be  dead  while  still 
alive!"  Twenty  times  Julie  just  failed  to  poison 
herself  with  this  regimen,  and  this  notwithstanding 

1  i.e.  Fahrenheit  13°  =  19°  of  frost.     This  was  in  January  1776. 


390  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

the  vigorous  efforts  of  her  friends — Guibert  at  their 
head.  "In  God's  name,  and  for  pity's  sake,"  he 
adjures  her,  "if  you  have  ever  loved  me,  do  not 
take  that  second  dose !  I  could  not  survive  you. 
.  .  .  Your  words  make  me  tremble ;  this  unknown 
cold  in  your  heart.  .  .  .  Ah,  your  speech  is 
Phaedra's." 

Worst  of  symptoms  was  Julie's  appalling  weak- 
ness. Notwithstanding  her  energy,  she  was  now 
rarely  able  to  leave  her  room  even  for  most  urgent 
affairs.  "  How  could  I  ever  get  there,"  she  says 
on  one  of  these  occasions,  "when  it  is  almost  too 
far  from  my  bed  to  my  armchair!  You  have  no 
idea  of  my  weakness.  I  labour  merely  over  this 
letter,  and  my  ears  ring  as  though  I  am  about 
to  faint."  These  fits  of  exhaustion  were  occasion- 
ally followed  by  short-lived  rallies  when  she  was 
feverishly  in  need  of  motion,  and  grows  suddenly 
hungry.  "  You  do  not  know  the  pleasure  of  eating 
with  passion  ?  Well,  that  is  what  I  have  been 
doing  for  twelve  or  fifteen  days,  and  the  doctors, 
who  are  ignorant  barbarians,  pretend  that  it  is  a 
bad  symptom  for  my  lungs.  Could  I  only  be  quit 
of  my  cough,  they  might  shake  their  heads  as  they 
please.  .  .  .  Never,"  she  resumes  again,  "  have  I 
felt  so  full  of  vitality  and  strength.  The  silence 
and  solitude  of  these  nights  give  me  an  intensity 
of  existence  which  cannot  be  described."  These 
ephemeral  improvements  brought  renewed  hopes 
and  plans  for  the  future.  At  one  time  she  was 
haunted  by  the  idea  of  moving  house  in  order  to  be 
nearer  to  Guibert,  but  put  an  end  to  this  scheme 


HER    LAST    DAYS  391 

with  feverish  haste  when  she  thought  him  too 
slow  in  his  conduct  of  the  scheme  which  she  had 
entrusted  to  him. 

For  the  rest,  though  her  body  languished,  her 
soul  remained  active  and  fervent  as  ever.  Her 
door  was  necessarily  closed  to  the  world  in  general ; 
but  though  she  received  only  a  limited  number  of 
intimates,  her  graciousness  and  eloquence  in  con- 
versation were  as  remarkable  as  in  the  best  days 
of  her  famous  salon.  "You  would  find  her  still 
interesting  and  animated  despite  her  suffering  and 
daily  increasing  weakness,"  wrote  Morellet  to  Lord 
Shelburne  ;  "  yet  a  miracle  alone  could  snatch  her 
from  death."  Illness,  again,  deadened  her  heart 
no  more  than  her  mind  ;  she  loved  Guibert  with 
the  same  tenderness,  the  same  ardour,  and  the 
same  bitterness  as  always.  With  the  same  need  of 
seeing  him  every  day,  she  never  tired  of  imploring 
his  presence.  "  I  ought  to  have  the  preference, 
because — it  seems — one  is  always  more  attentive 
at  parting :  devotion  does  not  then  establish  a  pre- 
cedent. This  is  why  the  dying  are  always  loved 
and  mourned."  She  apologises,  however,  for  the 
distressing  spectacle  that  she  must  offer  him.  "  I 
die  of  regret  for  the  manner  in  which  your  evening 
is  passed  here,  while  everywhere  else  you  are  sur- 
rounded by  pleasures  of  every  kind.  No  sacrifices, 
my  friend ! " 

These  last  words  prove  that,  if  passion  still 
endures,  jealousy,  its  sad  corollary,  has  no  more 
yielded  its  place  before  the  approach  of  death. 
Thoughts  of  the  two  women  who  are  to  outlast 


392  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

her,  the  sometime  mistress  and  the  legitimate  wife, 
poison  her  last  moments,  and  she  often  attacks 
Guibert  upon  the  subject  of  his  many  attachments, 
each  claiming  a  turn.  "  What  will  you  do  to-morrow, 
my  friend  ?  Not,  of  course,  what  you  said  that  you 
would  do,  but  what  will  please  the  first  or  the  last 
comer ;  and  that  is  fair,  for  my  place  is  between 
the  two.  How  thankful  I  would  be,  might  I  exile 
myself  from  this  trio  before  I  die.  Really,  you 
would  make  them  die  of  rage,  should  you  tell  them 
the  truth.  I — old,  plain,  cross,  and  dying — figure 
with  all  that  is  amiable  and  charming  in  the  country ! 
My  friend,  your  taste  is  bad.  I  am  sorry  for  you ; 
for  I  go,  but  you  will  remain — bad." 

With  this  sad  irony  Julie  now  plays,  instead  of 
with  the  violence  of  earlier  days.  Their  last  quarrel 
took  place  in  January,  and  was  so  terrible  that 
Guibert,  having  regained  his  composure  on  the 
morrow,  feared  a  fatal  resolution  as  its  close.  "  My 
friend,  what  a  reply  ! "  he  wrote  with  terror.  "  I 
found  it  awaiting  my  return,  and  I  shudder  at  it.  I 
am  overcome  by  the  horror  of  it,  and  by  the  fearful 
state  in  which  I  left  you.  You  were  pale  as  death 
...  I  your  executioner !  Ah,  does  one  kill  what 
one  loves,  what  one  cannot  help  loving  ?  Will  you 
have  me  to  weep  tears  of  blood  for  last  night's 
scene?  Two  words,  I  beg  you,  for  I  cannot 
breathe ! "  From  this  day  forward,  moved  both 
by  fear  and  compassion,  Guibert  having  vowed  to 
control  himself,  and  to  accept  everything  without 
revolt,  one  can  but  admire  the  patience  with  which 
he  kept  his  resolve.  To  bitter  words  and — still 


GUIBERT'S   TROUBLE  393 

more  painful — silent  reproaches  he  now  opposed 
only  resignation,  repentance,  and  gentleness.  "  I 
feel,  I  see,  I  may  expect  no  more  from  you,  my 
friend.  Your  heart  knows  only  despair  and  the 
longing  for  death.  You  are  indifferent  to  every- 
thing. Not  one  kind  or  gentle  word  for  me  has 
passed  your  lips  for  three  weeks  ;  your  will,  more 
than  your  weakness,  condemns  me  to  this  torture. 
Even  yesterday  you  said  that  you  wished  me  well, 
and  you  added,  '  as  well  as  you  have  done  ill  to  me.' 
What  a  wish !  .  .  .  You  spoke  of  your  health  with 
an  accent  of  despair,  as  who  should  upbraid  me 
with  it.  '  Yes,  I  suffer,  and  you  are  my  execu- 
tioner ;  I  die  that  I  may  no  more  vex  your  eyes,' 
you  seemed  to  say."  "You  affected  my  soul  in  a 
terrible  manner  yesterday,"  he  resumes,  a  few  weeks 
later ;  "  your  tears,  your  glance — dim,  but  never 
more  expressive — will  follow  me  for  a  long  while. 
You  scarcely  looked  at  me,  or  you  would  have  seen 
that  I  was  almost  as  overcome  as  you  yourself ;  I 
suffered  in  your  suffering,  and  I  wept  with  you." 
Never  before  had  he  spoken  with  such  evident 
warmth  and  truth.  "  I  think  of  you  ceaselessly  ;  I 
could  kiss  the  threshold  of  your  door,  and  I  should 
die  of  sorrow  could  it  not  open  to  me." 

Guibert's  continued  entreaties  and  d'Alembert's 
prayers  finally  prevailed  upon  the  invalid  to  summon 
other  aid  than  that  of  "the  doctor  in  my  street" 
with  whom  she  had,  so  far,  been  contented.  They 
suggested  Bordeu,  the  most  famous  practitioner  of 
his  time,  and  she  resigned  herself,  "  the  dagger  at 
her  throat,"  and  with  no  illusions  as  to  the  issue  of 


394  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

the  consultation.  "I  see  Bordeu  to  please  my 
friends,"  she  wrote,  "  and  the  same  friends  will 
presently  be  groaning  at  the  uselessness  of  his 
aid."  Bordeu  found  that  her  lungs  were  attacked, 
and  declared  her  condition  to  be  almost  hopeless. 
"Yet,"  Guibert  reassures  her,  "  he  says  that  if  the 
tension  of  your  soul  could  be  relaxed,  if  it  no  longer 
suffered,  you  would  grow  well."  The  new  treat- 
ment brought  no  improvement,  and  her  strength 
continued  to  decline  rapidly.  From  April  forwards 
she  never  left  her  bed,  and  the  circle  of  her  admitted 
friends  grew  more  and  more  restricted.  Besides 
Guibert,  who  came  morning  and  evening,  and 
d'Alembert,  who  never  left  her  bedside,  she  received 
only  Condorcet,  Suard,  and  Madame  Geoffrin,  who, 
though  just  recovering  from  an  attack  of  apoplexy, 
half-paralysed,  and  dying  herself,  daily  dragged  her 
feet  to  the  bedside  of  her  friend.  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse  was  deeply  touched  by  this  devotion. 
"  Ah,  what  a  melancholy  pleasure  I  take  in  seeing 
her !  Ah,  it  hurts  me  ;  I  believe  her  end  is  nearer 
than  mine.  I  never  could  control  my  tears,  and 
they  overcame  me  while  she  was  here.  I  was 
deeply  grieved."  Early  in  May,  Suard,  who  was 
obliged  to  spend  some  weeks  in  England,  bade  Julie 
what  he  knew  to  be  his  last  and  heartbroken  fare- 
well. "  I  do  not  pity  her  because  she  is  dying," 
he  wrote  to  his  wife  from  England,  "  for  life  to 
her  has  long  amounted  to  no  more  than  a  pro- 
longation of  suffering ;  but  I  regret  that  she  should 
so  suffer,  and  that  she  must  succumb  to  untimely 
death  after  long-continued  pain  and  despair.  This 


HIS    ANXIETY  395 

thought  haunts  me,  and  darkens  everything  for 
me." 

Guibert's  anxiety  was  so  great  that  he  could 
hardly  bear  to  absent  himself  for  a  few  hours 
when  business  called  him  to  Versailles  one  May 
day.  He  returned  in  the  evening,  indeed,  to  learn 
that  the  invalid  had  almost  died  during  the  day, 
and  to  find  a  note,  entitled  her  "  last  testament," 
each  word  of  which  filled  him  with  terror  and 
repentance.  "Your  last  testament!  This  word 
makes  me  tremble.  Alas !  your  letter  bears  the 
stamp  of  death  ;  these  sound  like  the  words  of  the 
dying.  ...  I  love  you,  my  friend,  I  love  you ; 
these  are  words  from  the  depth  of  my  soul ;  my 
sobs  would  interrupt  them  if  you  were  here." 
Here,  in  his  turn,  Guibert  besought  her  pity : 
"  Your  letter  crushes  me,  but  really  I  am  not 
so  culpable  as  you  imagine.  I  have  always  loved 
you,  1  have  loved  you  from  the  first  moment  that 
we  met.  You  are  dearer  to  me  than  anything  else 
in  the  world.  Yes — I  must  utter  it,  for  I  have 
searched  my  heart,  and  I  see  that  it  is  my  inner- 
most feeling — might  I  choose  between  your  death 
and  that  of  any  other  one  person  in  the  world,  I 
could  not  hesitate." 

Time  was  when  such  protestations  and  heart- 
felt grief  would  have  intoxicated  Julie  with  joy, 
but  the  sufferings  of  her  pain-racked  body  had 
at  last  reached  the  springs  of  her  being,  and  her 
voice  could  only  murmur  faint  thanks.  "  Truly,  I 
have  not  strength  to  hold  my  pen.  All  my  faculties 
are  occupied  with  suffering.  I  have  reached  that 


396  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

term  of  life  when  it  is  almost  as  painful  to  die  as 
to  live.  I  fear  pain  too  much  ;  the  sorrow  in  my 
soul  has  exhausted  all  my  strength.  My  friend, 
stand  by  me ;  but  do  not  suffer,  for  that  were 
indeed  the  worse  pain  of  all." 

Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse  retained  her  in- 
tense sensibility  to  the  end,  and  no  attentions  were 
lost  upon  her.  Thus,  when  one  evening  she  was 
in  worse  case  than  usual,  Guibert  sent  twice  for  news 
during  the  same  night,  and  this  interest  touched 
her  to  the  point  of  tears.  "  But  that  is  exactly 
like  you  !  To  send  twice  in  one  night !  Ah,  best 
and  lightest  of  men !  Yes,  be  calm,  I  beg  of  you, 
or  you  will  but  increase  my  suffering ;  yours  hurts 
me,  oh  so  badly!"  "You  beg  me  to  be  calm,  and 
you  are  dying !  "  he  replies,  beside  himself.  "  Your 
day  has  been  dreadful,  and  your  night  is  going  to 
be  dreadful.  .  .  .  See  a  doctor ;  take  milk,  since 
you  feel  that  it  may  relieve  you.  I  am  sending 
again  to  inquire  after  you.  It  will  be  half-past 
eleven  or  twelve  when  your  answer  reaches  me. 
I  shall  be  awake  and  in  tears.  .  .  .  Ah,  my  friend, 
why  will  you  not  see  the  depths  of  my  heart  ? 
You  would  be  touched — you  would  not  allow  your- 
self to  die ! " 

This  mournful  dialogue  continued  until  the  last 
moment.  Letters  were  now,  indeed,  their  only 
means  of  communication,  for  since  her  last  crisis 
Julie  would  not  permit  Guibert  to  enter  her  room. 
Madame  de  la  Ferte  Imbault  gives  us  the  reason 
for  this  interdiction.  "  Her  features  have  been 
twisted  and  distorted  by  convulsions,  so  as  to 


HER   FAREWELLS  397 

entirely  disfigure  her  face,  and  with  a  last  flicker 
of  coquetry,  she  is  reluctant  to  leave  this  picture 
of  herself  with  the  one  man  for  whose  memory 
of  her  she  is  concerned."  Julie,  however,  com- 
pensates him  for  this  rigour  by  frequent  notes, 
in  which  she  gives  free  play  to  her  great  tender- 
ness. One  written  on  the  afternoon  of  May  nth 
was  doubtless  intended  to  be  her  last  farewell.  It 
breathes  a  gentle  serenity  without  trace  of  bitter- 
ness, and  already  one  seems  to  feel  in  it  the  peace 
of  the  grave.  "You  are  too  good,  too  kind,  my 
friend ;  you  would  revive  and  sustain  a  soul  which 
is  at  last  succumbing  to  its  burthen  of  pain.  I 
appreciate  what  you  offer  me,  .but  I  no  longer 
deserve  it.  There  was  a  time  when  to  be  loved 
by  you  was  the  utmost  I  could  desire.  Then  I 
should  have  sought  to  live  ;  to-day  I  seek  only  to 
die.  ...  I  would  like  to  know  your  future.  I 
would  like  to  know  whether  you  will  be  happy  in 
your  surroundings  ;  you  will  never  be  very  unhappy 
in  your  character  or  your  feelings.  .  .  .  Farewell, 
my  friend.  If  I  were  to  return  to  life,  I  should 
still  like  to  spend  it  in  loving  you  ;  but  there  is 
no  longer  time." 

A  respite  of  a  few  days  yet  remained  to  her, 
and  these  Julie  used  to  complete  the  regulation 
of  her  affairs.  Her  will  appointed  d'Alembert  as 
executor  of  her  last  wishes,  and  she  wrote  him  a 
letter  on  the  i6th  of  May,  to  be  opened  after  her 
death.  "  I  owe  you  everything ;  I  am  so  sure 
of  your  friendship,  that  I  want  to  use  what  strength 
is  left  me  in  enduring  a  life  of  which  I  no  longer 


398  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

hope  or  fear  anything.  My  misery  is  without  re- 
source as  it  is  without  consolation,  but  I  still  feel 
that  I  ought  to  make  an  effort  to  prolong  days 
that  are  abhorrent  to  me.  ..."  Here  follow  direc- 
tions for  the  disposal  of  her  manuscripts  and  private 
papers,  and  a  codicil  containing  legacies  to  her 
friends.  "Farewell,  my  friend,"  she  concludes; 
"believe  that  death  brings  to  me  the  peace  for 
which  I  could  not  hope  in  life.  Always  treasure 
the  memory  of  Monsieur  de  Mora  as  the  most 
virtuous,  the  most  affectionate,  and  the  most  unfor- 
tunate of  men.  .  .  .  Good-bye  !  My  heart  and  my 
soul  are  deadened  by  despair,  and  I  have  lost  the 
power  of  expressing  any  other  feeling.  My  death 
is  but  the  proof  of  the  way  in  which  I  have  loved 
Monsieur  de  Mora ;  his  proved  but  too  well  how 
much  more  he  responded  to  my  tenderness  than 
ever  you  imagined.  Alas !  when  you  read  this, 
I  shall  be  freed  from  the  burthen  which  is  crushing 
me.  .  .  .  Good-bye,  my  friend,  for  ever." 

The  Marquis  de  Vichy,  summoned  by  a  pressing 
message  to  his  sister's  death-bed,  arrived  during  this 
week,  and  remained  with  her  to  the  end.  He  was 
a  sincere  believer  and  true  Christian,  and  undertook, 
in  defiance  of  the  rest  of  her  friends,  to  win  back 
this  soul  so  long  alienated  from  the  Church.  He 
has  himself  testified  to  his  success :  "I  saw  her 
draw  her  last  breath,"  he  wrote  to  Count  d'Albon, 
"and  I  am  happy  to  say  that  I  persuaded  her  to 
take  all  the  sacraments,  in  spite  of,  and  in  the  face 
of,  the  entire  Encyclopcedia.  She  died  in  a  Chris- 
tian spirit."  Divine  love  did  not,  however,  occupy 


HER   DEATH  399 

Julie's  heart  to  the  exclusion  of  profane  love,  for 
Guibert  engrossed  her  thoughts  until  the  last  hour. 
Denied  her  bedside  by  strict  orders,  he  spent  his 
days  in  d'Alembert's  room,  asking  for  her  every 
minute,  imploring  that  all  the  doctors  in  Paris  should 
be  consulted,  sometimes  choked  with  tears,  at  others 
plunged  in  mute  despair.  Report  of  his  misery 
pained  Julie  terribly,  and  seemed  to  drag  her  back, 
in  spite  of  herself,  to  the  life  which  she  was  depart- 
ing. In  her  feverish  impatience  to  die,  she  even 
wished  herself  unloved,  so  that  she  might  go  the 
more  easily. 

Julie  de  Lespinasse  was  still  under  the  influence 
of  this  idea  when,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
of  Tuesday  the  twenty-first  of  May,  she  asked  for 
writing  materials,  and,  lifting  her  hand  by  a  supreme 
effort,  traced  a  few  feeble,  but  still  legible,  words  to 
Guibert.  Through  this  short  note,  last  effort  of 
her  pen,  there  vibrates,  amidst  the  obscurities  of  her 
already  wavering  thought,  a  last  echo  of  that  passion 
which  won  her  an  hour  of  joy  and  two  years  of 
torture.  "  My  friend,  I  love  you  !  This  is  a  seda- 
tive to  benumb  my  pain.  You  can  easily  change  it 
to  poison,  and  of  all  poisons  this  will  be  the  speediest 
and  most  deadly.  Alas !  living  is  so  very  painful 
that  I  am  ready  to  implore  your  pity  and  generosity 
in  yielding  me  this  assistance.  It  would  end  a 
painful  struggle,  which  else  will  soon  weigh  upon 
your  soul.  Friend,  set  my  soul  at  rest !  For  pity, 
be  cruel  this  once.  I  die.  Farewell !  " 

Having  written  and  sealed  this  note,  she  called 
d'Alembert,  and  in  a  few  indistinct  words,  more 


400  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

breathed  than  articulated,  humbly  thanked  him  for 
his  kindness  and  long  devotion,  and  begged  his 
pardon  for  her  ingratitude.  This  language,  and 
her  affectionate  tone,  so  long  unheard  by  him,  em- 
boldened him  to  question  her,  and  to  try  to  learn 
at  last  the  secret  of  her  inexplicable  behaviour. 
He  asked,  however,  too  late ;  she  no  longer  had 
strength  "  either  to  speak  or  to  hear,"  and  they 
could  only  mingle  tears.  Towards  night  she  was 
for  a  long  while  unconscious,  and,  being  revived  with 
cordials,  opened  her  eyes  and  raised  herself  to  ask, 
with  an  air  of  surprise  :  "  Am  I  still  alive  ?  "  These 
were  her  last  words.  At  two  o'clock  that  night  her 
light  breathing  stopped,  and  her  sad  and  ardent 
heart  ceased  to  beat  and  to  suffer. 

The  funeral  and  burial  took  place  on  the  next 
day,  May  23rd,  at  the  church  of  Saint-Sulpice. 
Her  will,  dated  in  February,  stated  that  she  desired 
to  be  buried  "  like  the  poor,  without  being  exposed 
to  view  in  the  porch."  Her  wish  was  respected, 
and  the  ceremony  was  as  simple  as  it  was  brief. 
D'Alembert  and  Condorcet,  who  were  considered 
her  most  intimate  friends,  were  the  chief  mourners  ; 
while  Guibert,  lost  in  the  crowd,  seemed  over- 
whelmed with  sorrow.  Yet,  however  sincere  and 
profound  his  grief,  the  despairing  lover  did  not  kill 
the  man  of  letters  in  him.  That  same  night  he 
took  his  pen,  and  did  not  rise  until  he  had  finished 
the  long  composition — a  little  diffuse  and  high-flown 
in  places,  but  otherwise  full  of  interest,  of  eloquence, 
and  of  fire — subsequently  published  under  the  title 
L '  Eloge  cf  Eliza. 


D'ALEMBERT   DISILLUSIONED      401 

D' Alembert  was,  unfortunately,  absorbed  in  other 
cares.  Julie  had  put  upon  him  the  duty  of  return- 
ing certain  letters  to  their  writers ;  he  was  to  burn 
all  others.  Thus  sadly  occupied,  he  found  a  manu- 
script recital  of  her  love  for  Mora,  and  before  he 
could  cast  it  on  the  fire,  his  eye  had  perused  a  few 
lines,  and  the  roll  slipped  from  his  fingers.  Julie, 
then,  had  loved  Mora;  had  loved  him  with  un- 
equalled tenderness  and  with  all  the  strength  of  her 
being,  with  all  her  mind  as  with  all  her  soul !  And 
he,  d' Alembert,  all  unsuspecting,  had  ceased  "  eight 
years  ago  "  to  be,  as  he  says,  "  the  first  object  of  her 
affections."  To  complete  his  sorrow,  among  all  the 
packages  of  letters  which  he  was  charged  to  destroy, 
there  was  "in  this  immense  multitude  of  letters  not 
a  single  one"  from  his  pen.  He  was  seized  by 
a  terrible  idea,  which  possessed  him  for  several 
months — that  for  a  long  time  Julie  had  not  loved 
him,  perhaps  had  never  loved  him  ;  that,  at  any 
rate,  he  ranked  only  among  the  last  in  her  affections, 
after  "  ten  or  twelve  others,"  whom  she  indisputably 
preferred  to  him.  All  his  tenderness,  all  his  care 
and  his  sacrifices,  he  had  lavished  in  vain.  For  her 
he  had  lost  "sixteen  years  of  his  life." 

At  first,  indignation  almost  prevailed  over  his 
grief.  Bewildered  and  suffocated  with  anger,  and 
irresistibly  in  need  of  relieving  his  mind  and  open- 
ing his  heart  to  one  who  could  sympathise  with  his 
trouble,  a  supreme  irony  directed  his  choice  to 
Guibert.  This  deplorable  accident  apart,  the  letter 
is  affecting  in  its  expression  of  anguish,  of  decep- 
tion, and  of  melancholy  bitterness.  "...  As  to 

2  c 


402  JULIE    DE    LESPINASSE 

my  ungrateful  and  unhappy  friend — the  friend  of 
all  the  world  but  me — what  would  I  not  give, 
Monsieur,  that  your  friendship  for  her  and  for 
myself  were  not  mistaken  when  you  give  me  these 
assurances  of  her  feelings !  But,  unhappily  for  me, 
unhappily  even  for  her  memory,  the  public  voice 
and  yours  do  not  accord.  I  even  fear  that  you  will 
side  with  the  world  if  I  ever  have  the  strength  to 
inform  you  of  the  thousand  details,  unknown  to 
the  public  as  to  you,  which  but  too  clearly  prove 
that  their  voice  is  right.  .  .  .  Pity  me,  Monsieur, 
that  I  am  forsaken  ;  pity  my  misery,  and  the  hideous 
emptiness  of  the  rest  of  my  life !  I  loved  her  with 
a  tenderness  which  leaves  me  with  a  need  of  loving  ; 
I  have  never  been  first  in  her  affections ;  I  have 
lost  sixteen  years  of  my  life,  and  I  am  sixty  years 
old.  Why  can  I  not  die  in  writing  these  sad  words, 
and  why  can  they  not  be  graven  upon  my  tomb  !  .  .  . 
Alas  !  she  died  persuaded  that  '  her  death  would 
be  a  relief  to  me.'  This  she  said  to  me,  two  days 
before  her  death.  Farewell,  Monsieur.  I  am 
choked,  and  may  write  no  more!  Retain  your 
friendship  for  me  ;  it  would  be  my  consolation,  were 
I  capable  of  being  consoled.  But  all  that  was  mine 
is  lost,  and  nothing  remains  for  me  but  to  die." 

Time  healed  the  philosopher's  wrath,  and  filled 
its  empty  place  with  sorrow.  But  neither  the  con- 
solations of  his  friends,  the  sympathy  of  the  public, 
nor  the  distraction  of  work  could  overcome  his  sad- 
ness. "  He  is  badly  hit,"  Condorcet  wrote  to  Turgot. 
"  My  whole  hope  for  him  now  is  that  his  life 
may  prove  bearable."  In  course  of  time,  however, 


HIS    RESIGNATION  403 

d'Alembert  again  went  into  society,  and  frequented 
certain  salons.  But  having  dazzled  auditors  by  the 
brilliancy  of  his  conversation,  back  he  would  retreat 
to  the  hideous  loneliness,  in  which  he  compared 
himself  to  the  blind,  who  are  "  profoundly  sad  when 
alone,  but  are  thought  gay  by  society  because  the 
moment  when  they  are  with  others  is  to  them  the 
only  one  that  may  be  borne."  Therefore,  with 
profound  melancholy,  but  with  a  peaceful  heart,  the 
sanctuary  of  his  memory  was  from  henceforth  his 
shrine  wherein  to  invoke  her  who,  despite  her 
every  fault,  was  for  so  many  years  the  charm,  the 
interest,  and  the  sweetness  of  his  life.  For  us — 
better  informed  than  he  as  to  "his  ungrateful  and 
unhappy  friend  " — who,  day  by  day,  have  followed 
the  phases  of  this  tortured  existence  and  penetrated 
the  deep  recesses  of  her  consciousness — shall  we 
refuse  her  the  indulgence  ever  ready  for  those 
whose  inmost  souls  we  know,  and  whom  it  is  per- 
mitted us  to  judge  by  their  feelings  rather  than  by 
their  actions?  Surely  she  did  indeed  sin,  yet  for 
that  sin  she  paid  full  measure ;  and  if  she  suffered 
greatly,  so  also  did  she  greatly  live.  Judging  not, 
therefore,  neither  let  us  pity. 


THE    END 


Printed  by  BALLANTYNK,  HANSON  &*  Co. 
Edinburgh  <5r-  Lx>ndon 


